Quoted from Plenty of Peppers, Pickles and Oils published December 9, 2001 by Susan M. Novick:

ON weekends year-round, and daily in summer and during the holiday season, Pepperheads Hot Sauces has tastings at a counter in the atrium outside its store in the Harbor Square Mall here. More than a dozen hot sauces are available, ranging from “not hot” to mild, medium and hot. To sample “extra hot” sauces like Blair’s Ultra Death Hot Sauce, however, you must enter the store and sign a waiver (adults only) releasing the store from claims of damage or injury.

“Everyone says, ‘I like heat but I want flavor.’ Well, what’s hot to you?” said Bruce Passarelli, 60, of Setauket, the owner of Pepperheads. “That’s why we have tastings. Put a speck on your spoon and put it on your tongue, not your lips. Wait 30 seconds for the full impact. Then decide.”

"Mild" tasting in front of the Pepperheads Store!

Although the retail focus at specialty stores like Pepperheads, Pickle Packin’ Papa in Rocky Point and the Crushed Olive in Huntington and Stony Brook may be primarily one or two products, the range of choices can be broad. The shops’ proprietors count among their customers devotees who go out of their way for the variety they offer.

“The guy who drives here knows what he wants,” Mr. Passarelli said. “If it gets discontinued, he goes ballistic.”

Mr. Passarelli inherited the Pepperheads store when he bought the Harbor Square Mall in 2005. He said the original owner had been stocking the shop since about 1997 with hot sauces he discovered on trips to the Caribbean.

Mr. Passarelli’s son Bryan, 26, now manages the store, which carries more than 800 different bottles of hot sauce, as well as barbecue sauces, spicy chocolates, mustards and more.

This time of year, mini-bottles of hot sauce and gift packs are in demand as stocking stuffers, Bruce Passarelli said.

Only mild to hot sauces are on the tasting table. Extremely hot sauces are kept inside the store, and if you want to purchase one, you’ll be asked to sign a waiver that reads, in part, “I hereby disclaim, release and relinquish any and all claims . . . relating to any damage and/or injury that results . . . from the use, consumption, ingestion and/or contact of any bodily part or organ of or from [name of hot sauce here].”

Professor Pepperhead Himself and Son Bryan

Is all this really necessary? Bruce Passarelli, who owns the store with his son Bryan, said that it isn’t. “But, No. 1, it’s a great marketing tool. No. 2, when you sign it, a bell goes off – this is going to be really hot. And No. 3, it means that kids under 18 can’t buy the stuff .”

The names of the very hot sauces usually refer to insanity, death or pain: Dave’s Insanity Sauce, Blair’s Pure Death, Black Mamba (Its Bite is Deadly). Right now, Pepperheads’ hottest sauce is something called Mad Dog 357 Silver Edition, which rates 750,000 Scoville Units. (The Scoville scale measures the heat of a pepper or pepper sauce. For comparison’s sake, Tabasco comes in at about 2,100.)

The store’s most sought-after product is the Jolokia pepper (aka ghost pepper) from Assam in India, which was ranked by Guinness World Records in 2007 as the world’s hottest. It cannot be purchased fresh in the United States, but it figures in some prepared sauces, and Pepperheads carries it dried, in a sampler of two for $3.99 or a pint (30 to 40 peppers) for $19.95.

–Erica Marcus (View Listing on ExploreLI)

The cover of Chile Pepper magazine's March, 2008 edition!

This is our write-up on page ten in the March 2008 edition of Chile Pepper magazine!