Editor’s note: This is part of The Know’s series, Staff Favorites. Each week, we offer our opinions on the best that Colorado has to offer for dining, shopping, entertainment, outdoor activities and more. (We’ll also let you in on some hidden gems).
People talk about hell like it’s a bad thing. For my fellow hot-sauce lovers and me, it’s heaven.
Every time I’m in on vacation I seek out tourist-y hot-sauce retailers. You know the kind — sandwiched between fudge shops and overpriced Western-art galleries. Every ski resort town has one.
My favorite is . The Breckenridge-based shop sells dozens of types of bottled hot sauce, from mild and tangy varieties to internationally rated sauces wrought from Carolina Reaper and Trinidad Scorpion peppers (two of the hottest, though they’re always being topped). Only energy drinks have goofier names, and many of the best hot sauce brands aren’t printable in a family publication.
I love that shot of adrenaline I get when saucing up eggs, pizza or chicken, and the serious, lingering pain that accompanies each bite. But Rocky Mountain Cannery isn’t just about masochism. Its house-made products — the only ones you can order online — are its fresh salsas, relishes, pickles, stuffed olives, fruit preserves, butter, queso, barbecue sauce, syrups, pasta sauces and marinated mushrooms.
If that sounds like one of those too-big-to-be-good menus, it’s not. Each lovingly packed jar arrives with a different, colorful cloth cover, from the Habanero Ghost Pickle Slims and Applekraut to Hatch Baby Corn and Bacon Bourbon BBQ Sauce. The playfulness continues through the flavors, which balance time-tested recipes using fresh peppers, fruits, veggie spears and other ingredients with shots of sweetness, sourness and spice where you might not expect them.
Yes, they make the crazy-hot stuff in-house. The last time I bought some Reaper-based salsa there it only lasted a few weeks, despite its scorching Scoville level. Whether you’re picking up mom-and-pop bottles, Heatonist brands or Denver’s own, incredibly tasty — all of which are famous from YouTube’s “Hot Ones” — you’d do well to try the fresh stuff, too.
As noted, I never fail to leave Rocky Mountain Cannery with an armload of the bottled stuff. Demon Reaper, Puckerbutt’s Extra Mean Green, and Da Bomb are some recent purchases that I have yet to exhaust. Da Bomb, which is basically bear spray, works great as a competition-killer at my “Hot Ones”-style hot sauce parties. The rest I savor.
I’ll see you in hell!
Rocky Mountain Cannery. 302 S. Main St. in Breckenridge, with locations (under the name Taste: Sweet & Savory) in Steamboat Springs and Broomfield. 970-775-3163 or
