When we smoke our coarse black pepper, its familiar piney heat generated by the chemical compound piperin remains an up-front focus, but then it moves over to make room for an altered flavor profile. After the spicy pine, the flavors of smoky sweet bourbon and oak move in, digging deeper into pepper’s woody aspects. Next the citrusy brightness emerges in a spry bloom of flavor, then fades back to lingering pine heat as the finishing flavor. Our pepper is a 40-mesh grind that is good for the preservation of the volatile oil content, which is 3.65% by weight. The larger grind pepper acts as a storehouse for volatile oils, giving them plenty of nooks and crannies to adhere to. This permits the pepper to retain its potency and freshness.
Our coarse pepper is cold-smoked for 12 hours, using wood from actual spent bourbon barrels.