Making and Labeling Boozey Hot Sauce

I recently went on a hot sauce making kick and decided to bottle some up to give as gifts. I wanted to create a rustic and clean label as part of it, and definitely do it on the cheap. Also, the types of sauces I made all contain whiskey of some variety, so I liked the idea of using a brown paper bag like you just walked out of the liquor store. 

This is kind of a three for one Instructable with recipe and two types of labels, but it takes you through my day of hot saucing. 

Step 1: Make Your Concoction

I winged the hot sauces and didn't really know what I was going to make until it was underway. You know how the creative process goes. I put on a respirator because the air gets pretty thick when all those hot peppers are cooking. I made three hot sauces, bourbon ginger, Ardbeg thai chili and scotch jalapeño. 

Bourbon Ginger Hot Sauce
6 serrano peppers
3" of fresh ginger
2 oz bourbon
2-3 Tbs of pomegranate seeds
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp salt
1/2 lime
1/2 cup water
1 Tbs vinegar
1 Tbs olive oil
Dash of pepper

Split the serranos in half and put them in a cast iron skillet on high until they start to blister and turn black. Toss in the garlic for another couple of minutes. Lastly add the ginger and pomegranate and 1 oz of the bourbon. Toss it all around until the liquid has evaporated.

Put all of the ingredients, including what was in the skillet, into the food processor. I left the skin on the lime and just tossed it in. Let it go for 3-5 minutes.

Strain the mixture, bottle it and keep it in the fridge.


Scotch Thai Chili Hot Sauce
1 cup of thai chilis
2 oz of Ardbeg scotch
1 tsp brown sugar
1 Clove garlic
1 Tbs salt
1 Tbs lime juice
1 Tbs olive oil
Dash of pepper

Do the same as above, but heating only the chilis and garlic. 

Scotch Jalepeno Hot Sauce
4 Jalapenos
2 oz of Ardbeg scotch
1 Clove garlic
1 Tbs salt
1/2 lime whole
1/2 c. fresh cilantro
1/4 of a small onion
1 Tbs olive oil
1 tsp Cayenne
1 tsp Chipotle
1 tsp Pasilla 

Do the same as above, but heating only the Jalapenos, garlic and onion.

Step 2: Cut and Iron the Paper Bag

First off, you're going to make an 8.5x11 piece of paper from a brown paper bag. Just cut the two largest panels, iron them, and then use a piece of paper as a template. It needs to be fairly exact or your printer do its 'I hate you' noises. 

Step 3: Make Your Design

I pulled images of the ingredients off the interweb and arranged them into a nice grid. I turned the image black and white, pumped the contrast and lowered the brightness to get the mid-tones to show up on the brown paper.

Step 4: Print and Paste

For this bottle size (it's an old Soy Sauce bottle) one sheet of paper was perfect for two labels. Do a test run with a white sheet of paper first. When you print, you may need to tell your printer that you're using a heavier weight paper.

Once it's printed, cut it to size, put some glue on the edges and voila. Lovely brown paper textured label. 

Step 5: Large Bag Into Small Bag

Another alternative is to create a bottle sized bag from the 8.5x11 print out. Since I had to fold and handle this page more, the ink started to crack and come off a bit. I used a laser printer, so you might have better luck with inkjet. I had a box of crackers about the right size and folded the paper around one side like a present. Then I creased the two sides inward.


The whole project turned out pretty well and definitely got the "I can't believe you made this!" response.