peppers

(including peppercorns and chile peppers) have long been a staple for adding flavor, spice, and piquancy to alcoholic beverages. Peppercorns, the fruit of the Piper nigrum vine, grow in clusters, like berries, and are dried before use. Of South Indian origin, they were brought to Rome in the first century ce, where they were valued for adding flavor to food, of course, but also for their medicinal and mystical properties, as well as a badge of prestige and luxury.

The Romans were the most extravagant users of aromatics in history, using spices lavishly in the kitchen, cosmetics, and elsewhere. Spice-flavored wines were in demand, since spices were supposed to add “heat” to the banquet. Indeed, the first recipe in Marcus Apicius’s book, De re coquinaria is for “fine spiced wine,” a “honey refresher for travelers” spiked with crushed pepper and saffron; this is the first known recipe for a spiced alcoholic beverage.

So important were spices, they famously launched Christopher Columbus around the world, searching for a route to the Indies on behalf of the Spanish monarchy. Although what he found instead was the route to the New World, there were spices there. However, Columbus found the “wrong” spices—not peppercorns, cinnamon, and other Indian spices but allspice berries, vanilla, and fiery chile peppers.

Chile peppers, as the various members of the Capsicum genus are known, found their own uses in drinks, particularly in Mexico and in Eastern Europe. In Mexico, bottled chile sauce is a traditional ingredient in Sangrita, the sweet-spicy-fruity drink used as a chaser for shots of tequila. See Sangrita.

Eastern Europe, and Russia in particular, has added spices and other flavorings to vodka for as long as the spirit has been produced—most experts speculate this was to disguise poorly made home distillations or to make them more palatable. See home distilling. Russia’s honey- and chile-pepper-infused vodka, known as pertsovka, is of particular note. Similarly, the Ukraine’s horilka is made by steeping chile peppers in vodka. In addition to infusions made at home or produced for consumption in bars or restaurants, a number of commercial bottlings are also available. See also vodka.

Undoubtedly, these spicy infusions provided inspiration for the pepper-flavored vodkas now available in the United States. Stolichnaya introduced a Pertsovka bottling to the United States in 1962 and rebranded in 2012 as Stoli Hot. See Stolichnaya. Meanwhile, Absolut Peppar entered the US market in 1986; the producers claim the brand was intended for use in Bloody Mary cocktails. See Absolut and Bloody Mary.

In recent decades, as US demographics have shifted, including the sharply growing number of Americans with Latino and/or Asian heritage, tastes have changed too, including a rising acceptance of spicy flavors in food and drink. A growing number of bars now offer one or more spicy cocktails, often flavored with muddled chile peppers, hot sauces like Tabasco or sriracha, or dried spices mixed with salt to rim glasses to give a kick to otherwise familiar Margaritas or other cocktails. See Margarita.

Meanwhile, the number of pepper-infused bottlings on liquor store shelves has grown dramatically. In addition to the big brands, a number of smaller US producers offer pepper-flavored vodkas and other spirits. Hangar One Chipotle, made with dried chile peppers (chipotles), debuted in 2007 and had a reputation among chile-heads for being the only spicy liquor around that had actual chile pepper flavor, with a fruity-sweet backbone to support the capsaicin burn. After the Hangar One brand was sold to Proximo Spirits in 2010 (leaving its creator St. George Spirits as an independent entity), the chipotle vodka vanished from store shelves. In 2015, St. George introduced Green Chile Vodka, made with fresh jalapenos, serranos, habaneros, red and yellow bell peppers—but no chipotles. See St. George Spirits.

It’s no longer just vodka anymore, either. Within the past couple of years, chile peppers and peppercorns have been used in commercial bottlings for flavored whiskies, flavored tequilas, and liqueurs, and even as a botanical for gins, not to mention “hellfire” bitters, shrubs, and spicy syrups meant for mixing into cocktails.

Keay, John. The Spice Route: A History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.

By: Kara NewmanSee Sangrita.See home distilling.See also vodka.See Stolichnaya.See Absolut, Bloody Mary.See Margarita.See [St.