Partner Spotlight: Acopine Pepper Co. Italian Hot Sauce

Acopine Italian Hot Sauce is deep seeded in family tradition. Drawing inspiration from his family’s home in Melito Di Porto Salvo in Calabria, Italy, Josh Acopine turned his passion for hot sauce into a career. The grandson of Italian immigrants and the son of a food broker and purchaser, Acopine’s life has been spent in restaurants and kitchens. He got his start making hamburger patties in his cousin’s restaurant before managing a restaurant at 17 years old. After 18 years in the industry, the pandemic of 2020 led him to change paths.

Always an avid connoisseur of hot sauce, Acopine began dreaming of launching a hot sauce business while working in a Western North Carolina restaurant. Growing up in the Italian American neighborhoods of Pittsburg, he had always been a fan of the Italian dressing dripping off meats and sandwiches. Those culinary memories, combined with his southern Italian roots lead Acopine to create an authentic, Calabrian sauce.

Cuisine in Southern tip of the boot is filled with robust and bold flavors. The area’s greatest gifts to the culinary world are the bergamot and Calabrian chili peppers. Acopine paired the Calabrian chili pepper to create a hot sauce much like the Italian dressings of his childhood. Mild in spice, the vinegar-based sauce is tangy, highlighting both Calabrian chili peppers, pepperoncini and other bold Italian flavors.

“In a way my sauce is like Nonna’s homemade meatballs. It’s flour on the apron of your neighborhood pizza legend, it’s a warm nostalgic hug that you get from fresh pasta or your grandfather’s pizzelles, it’s a family gathering around the dinner table with enough food to feed an army. This isn’t traditional hot sauce. It isn’t even traditional Italian sauce. This is an accompaniment for any meal. Not too spicy but full of bold Italian flavors straight from the boot. A sandwich dressing? Absolutely. For wings? You bet. It’s the only sauce of it’s kind.”

At FEED, we are honored to feature the Acopine Pepper Co. Italian Hot Sauce on our Rocky Balboa Biscuit. Served on a buttermilk biscuit with southern breaded and fried chicken and goat cheese, the Italian Hot Sauce adds an added flavor and tang, to an otherwise traditional dish. Join us for Sunday Brunch and enjoy the tangy kick of Acopine Pepper Co. Italian Hot Sauce.