If you have ever had the opportunity to read our About Us page, you know that we spend a significant amount of time tasting and selecting products. In our unceasing quest to find the tastiest gourmet delights for our customers, the Armadillopepper.com team recently uncovered another hidden gem when we discovered a boutique hot sauce company located in Long Beach California called Organic Originals. These guys make some incredibly flavorful sauces!

After our initial visit to their very entertaining jungle-themed website: (www.organicoriginals.org), we were intrigued, but after taste-testing their product we were convinced. Owned and operated by Papa Georgio and Gramma Dee (so named by their grandchildren), Organic Originals boasts hot sauces made from hydroponically grown, rare peppers from the Yucatan Peninsula, Central Africa, India and Mexico. They use only the finest organic ingredients, no pesticides or chemicals of any kind, and lovingly make each sauce one small batch at a time.


Who are these guys? Gramma Dee (AKA DeeDee Rescher, an actress best known as the bus driver in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and as recurring characters on TV’s King of Queens and The Nanny, among many other credits) and Papa Georgio (a boat painter and raconteur of 30 years) started planting peppers and tomatoes in their home garden just as a hobby. Their efforts were so successful that, very soon, harvest time became a challenge: “What to do with all the fruits of our labor?” At this point, Papa Georgio began what would become many years of perfecting what’s known today as his “signature sauce,” Pura Vida! (Spanish for “pure life”). It was immediately a huge hit among friends and family. Then, one day on impulse Papa G brought his sauce to the highly regarded restaurant, Bear Flag Fish Company in Newport Beach, CA.

“It was a whim,” he notes. “Just for fun, we made a label for the restaurant with their logo. They put a bottle on each table and set up a concession to sell individual bottles to customers. After only a few months we were getting orders for cases of the stuff on a weekly basis! The owner of the restaurant called me and said, ‘What’s in this stuff? People are lining up at the door for it!’ It was then that we knew we had to bring it to the world market.” And here it is!

We were especially drawn to the “green” message they are sending with their organic ingredients and biodegradable packaging. Plus they have an irresistible charitable angle: a percentage of every bottle of Organic Originals hot sauce sold goes to a wildlife sanctuary, Fundacion Sanruario Silvestre de Osa, situated on the Gulfo Dolce in Costa Rica. The sanctuary is a local non-profit enterprise wholly committed to providing wildlife rescue and rehabilitation for orphaned and injured animals indigenous to the southern zone in Costa Rica. Each bottle of Organic Originals sauce features a photo of one of the many colorful and engaging creatures saved by the sanctuary.

We know that, like everyone else, you’ll love all four flavors of these flavorful, truly different and versatile chili pepper sauces.

At ArmadilloPepper.com we are excited to introduce our customers to our newest discovery and offer all four of Organic Originals Chili Pepper Sauce flavors:

• Pura Vida - with jalapenos and habaneros. This is the mildest sauce. Members of our taste team that are not big hot sauce fans loved this sauce - even eating it with just chips.
• Hotte Chololatte - with chocolate habanero peppers. Using the chocolate habanero combined with cocoa powder and cherries make this one of the most unique chili pepper sauce flavors you will find.
• Femme Fatalii - with the African fatalii pepper. This hot sauce has a nice bite, but with a fruity flavor from the organic pineapple and orange juices.
• Fantasma - with the world's hottest pepper: Naga "Bhut" Jolokia (a.k.a "Ghost Pepper").  What can we say? Everybody wants the Ghost Pepper these days and Fantasma is a hot, flavorful pepper sauce blended with blue agave, orange juice and pineapple juice.

Purchase individually or save when purchasing the Organic Originals Chili Pepper Sauce Variety 4 Pack.

Serving suggestion? Use on everything! And when you do, keep in mind the exuberant advise from Eddie Bueno:

“It’s a jungle out there! Somebody’s got to flavor it!”