Profiting From a Pack of Peppers
Los Angeles Times - By Charles Hillinger, Times
Staff Writer
Products:
Outerbridges Original Sherry Peppers Sauce, a Bermudian favourite
now marketed in U.S. gourmet shops is based on a recipe concocted by British Sailors in the 1600's.
FLATTS, Bermuda - There is virtually no manufacturing in this
22-mile-long, 2 mile-wide, fish hooked shaped island chain in the
Western Atlantic, not even raw materials for export. But there's one
Bermuda-made product found next to the salt and pepper shakers in
virtually every home and restaurant here, and it is also sold in gourmet
shops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York and all across
America.
It comes from the basement of Yeaton Outerbridge's 300 year old home in
Flatt's, a tiny village in Smith's Parish on Harrington Sound. It is
Outerbridge's Original Sherry Peppers Sauce.
Outerbridge concocts his spicy seasoning from Sherry imported from Spain
and from 17 spices and cherry peppers imported from America. The sauce
steeps in 50-gallon vats for nine months before it is bottled. The sauce
is a 300-year old Bermuda tradition, having started with British sailors
on sailing vessels in the Royal Navy in the 1600's. They called it
pepper wine. After a few days at sea, food without refrigeration would
begin to spoil, and sherry peppers sauce made it palatable. In those
days, the peppers were grown in Bermuda. "Bermudians traditionally
grew the cherry peppers in their back yards and made their own sherry
peppers sauce," explained Outerbridge, 62, as he stirred the sauce
steeping in his basement vats. "But peppers were becoming scarce.
Not everyone had them. That's when my late cousin, Robert Outerbridge, a
World War II RAF pilot , and I decided to make the sauce commercially in
1964."
Today only a few of the 57,000 Bermudians on this island chain, 568
miles east of Cape Hatteras N.C., make their own supplies of the
condiment. They leave that to Outerbridge. "Bermudians pour sherry
peppers on almost everything they eat." Outerbridge said.
"They are addicted to it because it adds zest to everything from
soup and scrambled eggs to grouse, grilled cheese and scaloppini."
There is a saying in the islands that Bermuda fish chowder, the national
dish, is not Bermuda fish chowder without Outerbridge's sherry peppers
sauce. For visitors to this land a sparkling beaches, mild temperatures,
whistling frogs and land crabs, a popular souvenir is a bottle of
Outerbridge's Sauce.
Outerbridge who sells his product in all 50 American States and does a
big mail order business, is a 14th-generation Bermudan, a descendant of
Thomas Outerbridge, who came here from Yorkshire in 1619.
He makes a dozen other condiments and jellies in his basement kitchen,
by sherry peppers sauce makes up two thirds of his sales.
The logo for Outerbridge Peppers Ltd. shows the company name
embracing the word sauces with flames leaping from each letter.
Outerbridge would not disclose the company's annual sales, but admitted
to making a "tidy" income from his small basement industry,
with 50% of his production sold in Bermuda and 50% in the United States.
