Our Story
Started in a rented kitchen with nine chiles and a bad idea.
Torrid Tongues began as a Sunday-night hobby: roasting whatever chiles looked good at the Portland farmers market and bottling the results for friends. Ten years later, the hobby is a bonded kitchen, a small crew of fellow heat-seekers, and a lot more than nine chiles.
How We Got Here
A decade of small batches.
The first bottle
Founder Jess Marlowe roasts a batch of serranos in a rented commissary kitchen and hand-labels forty bottles for a neighborhood pop-up market.
Ember Reserve is born
After eighteen test batches, the oak-aged chipotle-jalapeño blend that becomes our flagship sauce finally earns the name Ember Reserve.
Our own kitchen
Torrid Tongues moves into a dedicated 2,400 sq ft production kitchen in Northwest Portland, complete with a proper fermentation room.
12,000 bottles a year
What started as forty bottles a season becomes twelve thousand a year, sold direct and through fifty-plus specialty grocers.
What We Believe
Four rules we don't break.
Whole chiles, always
If it didn't start as a fresh or dried pod, it doesn't go in the pot. No powders standing in for the real thing.
Nothing to hide
Every ingredient is on the label, full stop — no proprietary blends used as a shortcut around transparency.
Batches, not lines
We cap every run at 40 gallons so a human being tastes and signs off on the flavor before it's bottled.
Fresh over fast (but both)
We bottle to order rather than stockpile, then ship within 48 hours so your sauce is always fresh from the kitchen.
Want the full recipe story?
We love talking chiles, fermentation schedules, and Scoville math. Reach out any time.