People don’t expect to find hot sauce at a liquor store, which could be why Imbibe Chattanooga still had some of Hoff & Pepper’s products in stock last week.
“People get really surprised when they see that we still have some,” Seth Young, an employee at the store, said in a phone call Tuesday.
The Chattanooga hot sauce brand shut down April 25 after about a decade in business, although some local businesses have managed to retain a dwindling inventory of Hoff & Pepper’s products. As of Tuesday morning, Imbibe still had a limited supply of Smoken Ghost Ketchup, Young said.
“They’ve been flying off the shelf after word got out that they were closing,” said Young, who has previously used the company’s dry rub, Dirty Dust, to season popcorn.
In a statement posted online in April, Hoff & Pepper said it made the hard decision to close after facing long-term financial challenges.