Ember the everyday one
Bright Fresno chiles and oak-smoked garlic, fermented five weeks. Smoky, gently warm, and greedy on eggs, tacos and anything off the grill.
3/10
$12 / 5 OZ
Small-batch ferment room · Floyd, Virginia
Hot sauce that earns its heat.
Four fermented sauces, made 400 bottles at a time in a converted cider barn in the Blue Ridge. Wild-fermented for weeks, rested in charred oak for months, and never softened with extracts, gums or filler — Ember, Oak, Field and Ash.
- No extracts
- No gums
- No artificial colour
- Vegan
- Certified gluten-free
- Bottled by hand
The lineup
Four sauces, four moods.
Every bottle starts the same way — whole chiles, sea salt, a crock and a fortnight of patience. Where it ends up is the interesting part. All four come in 5 oz woozy bottles.
Oak the patient one
Habanero rested eight months in charred oak barrels. Round and deep — toasted sugar, allspice, and a slow burn that arrives a beat late on purpose.
6/10
$16 / 5 OZ
Field the green one
Tomatillo, serrano and charred scallion, fermented four weeks. Herbaceous and sour-bright, like a salsa verde that got ambitious and moved to the country.
4/10
$12 / 5 OZ
Ash the serious one
Carolina Reaper, black garlic and roasted cacao, cellar-rested three months. Dark, molasses-edged and properly hot. Respect it, and maybe don't rub your eyes.
9/10
$16 / 5 OZ
Can't choose? The four-pack is $50 — six dollars off the singles — and ships in moulded recycled pulp, never plastic. Order the four-pack by email.
How we make it
Weeks, not minutes.
There is no shortcut that tastes like this. Wild fermentation is slow and a little unpredictable, and worth every single day of it.
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Salt & wait
Whole chiles, sea salt and nothing else. The wild lactobacillus already living on the skins does the work — no starter culture, and no vinegar up front to hide behind.
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The ferment room
Each crock sits four to eight weeks at 18–21 °C. We taste twice a week and move a batch along when it's ready, never when the calendar says so.
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Oak & rest
Barrel lots go into charred American oak for up to eight months; the rest simply rest. Time rounds off the raw, sharp edge that vinegar leaves behind.
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Bottled by hand
Blended, brought up just enough to hold the ferment steady, and filled 400 bottles at a time in the barn. Every label carries its batch date and heat number.
The Cellar Club
A box every other month.
Six shipments a year, packed the week they're bottled and sent straight from the ferment room. Skip, pause or cancel from any reminder email — no phone calls, no retention scripts, no hard feelings.
Two bottles
$22 PER BOX · EVERY OTHER MONTH
- Ember plus one rotating seasonal
- Free shipping, every box
- 15% off one-off orders
- Cancel any time
Most popular
The Trio
$32 PER BOX · EVERY OTHER MONTH
- Ember, Oak and Field
- Swap any bottle for Ash
- Free shipping, every box
- 15% off one-off orders
Full Cellar
$40 PER BOX · EVERY OTHER MONTH
- All four sauces, every shipment
- First pick of barrel releases
- Founders' notes with each batch
- Free shipping, every box
- Pay annually and the seventh box is free.
- A note from the ferment room in every box.
- Members get first call on barrel-aged releases.
- Pause for a month, a season, or forever.
On the shelf
Find us in the wild.
Ember & Oak is on the shelf at more than forty independent grocers across Virginia, Washington DC and western North Carolina. Here are six shops we're especially glad to call neighbours.
- Harvest Moon Market Blacksburg, VA
- Ramp & Radish Roanoke, VA
- The Brick Grocer Floyd, VA
- Larkspur Corner Store Charlottesville, VA
- Foggy Bottom Provisions Washington, DC
- Asheville Ferment Co. Asheville, NC
Not nearby? The Cellar Club ships anywhere in the continental US.
Stocking us
Independent grocers, bottle shops and restaurants — we wholesale straight from the barn. Twelve-bottle minimum, $6.50–$9 cost per bottle, plain net-30 terms, and no exclusivity strings attached.
Straight answers
Questions, answered.
How hot is hot, really?
Every label prints a 1–10 heat. Ember is a 3, Field a 4, Oak a 6 and Ash a 9 — and Ash is built on Carolina Reaper, so it means it. If you're cautious, start with Ember or Field; they're the two that reliably disappear off our own kitchen tables.
Do these taste like vinegar?
Less than most. Fermentation does the acid work here, so we add only enough vinegar to balance the blend — not to carry it. Oak lands the roundest of the four, while Field stays the sharpest and brightest.
Does it need to go in the fridge?
Once it's open, yes — keep it cold and it stays lively for months. Unopened, it holds about eighteen months in a cool cupboard. The batch date is printed on every label so you always know what you've got.
Is it vegan? Gluten-free?
All four sauces are vegan and certified gluten-free. There's no added sugar, no gums, no extracts, no artificial colour and nothing you'd need to look up. Chiles, salt, garlic, vegetables, vinegar, time.
How does the Cellar Club ship?
Every other month, packed the week it's bottled, in moulded recycled pulp. Shipping is free on every Cellar Club box. You can skip, pause or cancel from any reminder email, and annual members get a seventh box on the house.
My bottle turned up damaged.
Sorry about that — glass and post don't always agree. Email hello@emberandoak.com within fourteen days of delivery and we'll send a replacement, no photos required.
Come and see
The ferment room door is usually open.
Visit
Ember & Oak214 Slate Run Road
Floyd, Virginia 24091
Tasting room open Friday to Sunday, 11am–4pm. Drop-ins welcome; for groups of six or more, please email first so we can put a bench out.
Talk to us
Order questions, wholesale, or a bottle that didn't survive the trip — a real person answers within one working day.
hello@emberandoak.com
+1 (540) 555-0138
Phone answered Tuesday to Saturday, 9am–3pm ET.
Order or subscribe
Order a single bottle, the $50 four-pack, or start a Cellar Club box. Tell us where it's going and we'll take it from there.