Laconia couple's new sauce company exploring the slightly milder side of hot

LACONIA — Sometimes a successful business starts with an idea as its seed, one which germinates and flourishes to produce a harvest of figurative fruit. In the case of Jehu Hot Sauce, made by a couple that lives in the Pleasant Street neighborhood, their business started with a literal handful of seeds – seeds which, planted in their garden, gave Pete and Iriwina Andearsen more hot peppers than they knew what to do with.

With their bounty, Pete, who had made his own hot sauces before, decided this was his opportunity to come up with some new recipes. They liked six of them enough that they bottled them to give to friends. Iriwina, who handles the business side of their nascent operation, said she and Pete didn't set out to start a home business. After all, they both already have day jobs.

"We just gave them out to friends at parties," she said. There friends weren't satisfied with just one bottle, though. "They asked where they could buy it." Irwina, who has a career in sales, had also started giving little bottles of the sauce to clients. "The response was huge."

The writing on the wall was not just clear but as unavoidable as a flashing neon sign. So, about four months ago, the Andearsens founded the Jehu Hot Sauce company – named after a king in the Old Testament – and set about bringing their sauces to market.

Jehu Hot Sauce made its first appearance at the Concord Food Cooperative. Success there emboldened Iriwina to shop her product around to a few local stores; everywhere she's brought it has agreed to stock it. Shoppers can find the sauces at Sunflower Natural Foods in Laconia, So Little Thyme in Meredith and the Wine'ing Butcher locations in Gilford and Meredith. Burrito Me in Laconia doesn't retail the sauces, she said, but makes it available for patrons to pour on their food.

Most recently, Iriwina started bringing their product to the Tilton Winter Farmer's Market, where she said nearly everyone who stopped to try a sample was soon reaching for their wallet. To her surprise, they sold 72 bottles on Saturday, their first trip to the market.

"It's an amazing thing, we feel like we're chasing the business," said Iriwina, laughing about how their success has come without the aid of a business plan, a market study or anything resembling a thought-out strategy. "We didn't have any expectations," she said. "All we wanted to do was make it really good and have people like it."

Pete, who Iriwina said is the creative half of the Jehu team, aims to put sweet fruit flavors at the forefront of his recipes, with the peppery heat kicking in afterward. Their products are distinct from the masochistic makers of hot sauces that feature skulls and crossbones, flaming tongues or mushroom clouds on their labels. "Our whole approach is creating something that is very very flavorful, and the heat is kind of a second thing," she said, resulting in sauces that "are on the mild side of hot."

Interestingly for them, their three best sellers have been their mildest – "Mad Mango", their hottest – "Smokey Tom", and the steak sauce-like "Downtown". Iriwina said Pete is currently developing new sauces for either end of the spicy spectrum.

The Andearsens make their sauces out of their home kitchen, where she said they are about halfway to their current capacity of 100 bottles per day. That capacity could increase, she added, without them having to go off-site.

The Jehu Hot Sauce experience has been "A ton of fun – it's just been a blast," Iriwina said. Soon, she expected, her husband would have to quit his day job and make sauce full-time, something they never would have expected just a few months ago. "It's been growing really quickly."

CAPTION for JEHU in AA:

Iriwina Andearsen, shown here at Sunflower Natural Foods in Laconia, holds a bottle of "Mad Mango" sauce her husband Pete made. The success of their home-based Jehu Hot Sauce business has taken them by surprise. (Laconia Daily Sun photo/Adam Drapcho)