These Arkansas Monks Have A Knack For Making A Mean Hot Sauce

"Perhaps someone who is living a simple life needs to have something to spice it up."

The monks of Subiaco Abbey have found a delicious way to add a bit of spice to their lives.

These Benedictine monks have been packaging and selling their signature hot sauce, affectionately called "Monk Sauce," for more than a decade.

The monk who started the business, Father Richard Walz, reportedly learned how to make habanero pepper sauce while he was living in Belize. Walz brought habanero pepper seeds back to America in 2003, when he returned to the Arkansas River Valley monastery.

Father Richard Walz uses gloves to handle a hot Habanero pepper.
Father Richard Walz uses gloves to handle a hot Habanero pepper.
Great Big Story / YouTube

The peppers thrived in Arkansas' climate and more than a decade later, the abbey ships both red and green versions of their sauce around the world.

Monk Sauce comes in at about 250,000 heat units on the Scoville scale, a system of measurement used to compare the spiciness of chile peppers. In comparison, Tabasco's Habanero Sauce is about 7,000 Scoville Units.

A video produced by Great Big Story shows Walz planting peppers on the abbey's grounds and creating his special sauce in its kitchens. The peppers are blended with vinegar, onions, carrots, garlic and salt before being poured into bottles.

"Perhaps someone who is living a simple life needs to have something to spice it up," Walz said in the video.

Watch the video above to see how Monk sauce is created.

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