Taking taste buds to a mysterious place

Ever since he was a kid, Brian Platter liked spicy food and hot sauce. So much so the graphic designer has a collection of hundreds of different artisanal sauce labels he bought over the years.

During a trip to Cincinnati back in 2012, Platter stopped at a giant supermarket called Jungle Jim’s, which had a whole aisle of hot sauces. He bought at least $50 worth and started his label collection from there, carefully removing them from bottles after he finished with the sauce.

“Locally, you have Frank’s and Cholula,” Platter said. “You don’t find a lot of local artisan stuff.”

That collection would lead to Platter creating his own line of hot sauces, the Burnin’ Hollow Sauce Company, one that while based in Erie County is cooked out of Sanborn. The labels he designed himself feature Cthulhu of the Lovecraftian mythos on them.

He got the idea to start growing his own peppers in 2019, cooking his first recipes and batches in 2020. At first, he just shared what he made with friends and family.

“The demand kept growing year over year,” Platter said. “My friends were asking, ‘When are you making the next batch?’ ”

Finally deciding to go commercial this past fall, Platter went on a long journey to get certified and licensed to sell food products. He finally cooked his first batches for sale this past May.

While the company is officially registered in Amherst where he lives, the sauce can only be cooked out of a certified kitchen. For that, Platter cooks and bottles the sauce himself out of the Shawnee Volunteer Fire Co. on Lockport Road. The two built a relationship after Platter met with the fire company at a farmers market in Tonawanda, renting their kitchen whenever he needed to cook.

The three flavors available, Awaken the Dead, Blood of Heroes and Sting of the Ancients are sweeter than savory. Platter will start cooking two other flavors in August once he can source scorpion and ghost peppers for them.

All the ingredients in them, no more than seven per recipe, are locally sourced, with the honey used in Sting of the Ancients coming from Fairytale Farms in East Aurora. Once peppers from local farms are fruiting, Platter will be able to source them locally too.

As for the Cthulhu labels, Platter has been fascinated by the works of H.P. Lovecraft and the Mariana Trench with how much has not been discovered. His graphic design company is also named Blue Hollow.

So far, Platter has sold his sauces at farmers markets across Amherst, Clarence, and Kenmore and through Burnin’ Hollows’ website. The only brick-and-mortar store selling them is Sgt. Pepper’s Hot Sauces in Lewiston.

Another sauce made with Carolina Reaper peppers is in the works, wanting to make more savory sauces. Platter also wants to get into selling salsas and pickled foods too.