How Barbaro Mojo Hot Sauce Is Made: Small Batch, Made in Miami
Mario CruzBarbaro Mojo hot sauce is made in small batches in Miami: fresh peppers, fresh garlic and fresh onion are cooked into our house-made mojo base, then the sauce is filled, labeled and packed one run at a time. Our whole year of production is about 6,000 bottles. Tabasco makes around 700,000 bottles in a single day.
People keep asking when we restock and what actually goes into the bottle, so we filmed our September run. Here it is, start to finish, in 28 seconds.
Our September 2026 run: kettles, the filling line and every bottle getting its new foil label.
Our Whole Year Is Less Than 1% of One Tabasco Day
"Small batch" gets printed on a lot of bottles, so here is the number. We make about 6,000 bottles a year. The Tabasco factory on Avery Island turns out roughly 700,000 bottles a day. Put those side by side and our entire year is less than 1% of one of their days.
Tabasco makes a very different sauce in a very different way, and we get to that below. For us, small means every bottle comes out of a run we can stand next to and film.
What Goes Into the Kettle
The peppers, the garlic and the onion go in fresh. No garlic powder, no onion powder, no pepper extract, no "natural flavor." You can check that on any of our labels.
Four things make up every batch:
- Fresh peppers. Jalapeños in Jalabáo, habaneros in El Havanero, habanero with a little Carolina Reaper in Best Day Ever and Matanza, and Fresno, habanero and Reaper in Piñazo.
- Vegetables and fruit. Tomatoes, sweet onion and bell pepper, plus mango in Best Day Ever and pineapple in Piñazo. In four of our five sauces a fruit or vegetable is the first ingredient on the label.
- Our mojo. Mojo criollo is the sour orange and garlic marinade Cuban kitchens use on pork, and we make ours in house. It is why the sauces taste like food first and heat second. Piñazo's mojo uses pineapple juice in place of sour orange. More on that in what mojo hot sauce is.
- Our spice blend. The "Spices" line on the label is our Cuban blend, built on oregano, cumin and pepper.
A kettle of Jalabáo on the September run. The flecks are the jalapeño and green bell pepper.
How a Run Goes, Step by Step
- Make the mojo. The sour orange and garlic base comes first, because every sauce is built on it. Piñazo gets its own version made with pineapple juice.
- Cook the sauce. The fresh peppers, garlic and onion go into the kettle with the tomatoes or fruit and the mojo, and the sauce cooks.
- Fill. The hot sauce runs to the filler and into 5 oz bottles.
- Label. Each bottle rolls through the labeler. This run was the first with our new 5 year anniversary labels, the ones with the gold foil that catches the light when you turn the bottle.
- Pack. Bottles go into cases of 12, ready to ship to you.
How That Compares to the Big Bottles
The fastest way to see the difference is to read the labels. Here is our hottest everyday sauce next to two of the best-known hot sauces in the country, using each company's own published ingredients.
| Barbaro Mojo El Havanero | Cholula Original | Tabasco Original | |
|---|---|---|---|
| First ingredient | Tomatoes | Water | Distilled vinegar |
| Peppers | Fresh habaneros | Arbol and piquin | Tabasco peppers, aged as a mash |
| Garlic | Fresh garlic, plus the garlic in our mojo | Garlic powder | None |
| Flavor base | Mojo criollo (sour orange and garlic) | Spices, natural flavor | Pepper, salt, vinegar |
| Where and how | Cooked in small batches in Miami | Made in Jalisco, Mexico | Avery Island, Louisiana; mash aged up to 3 years in oak barrels |
Sources: Cholula Original ingredients (McCormick) and how Tabasco ages its mash.
Tabasco's aged mash is a real craft of its own: peppers are mashed with salt the day they are picked and rest in white oak barrels for up to three years. That gives a fermented, vinegar-forward sauce. Ours goes the other way. We cook fresh peppers, garlic and onion with tomatoes or fruit into a citrus and garlic base, so you taste the tomato, the mango or the pineapple before the heat arrives.
What We Won't Hide on the Label
Here is the fine print, since you will see it on the label anyway:
- Jalabáo lists distilled vinegar first. It is a jalapeño sauce, and vinegar is what keeps it bright and green. The other four lead with a fruit or vegetable.
- Four of our five sauces use a little xanthan gum so the sauce does not separate on the shelf. Piñazo has none. Cholula uses it too.
- Our mojo carries small amounts of food-safe preservatives (potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate) from the sour orange juice we use to make it. Piñazo's mojo uses pineapple juice instead, so Piñazo has none.
Everything else is what it looks like in the video: fresh peppers, garlic and onion, tomatoes or fruit, our mojo and our spices. All five sauces are gluten free and vegan, with no high-fructose corn syrup and no MSG. The heat comes from real peppers, and you can see the lab Scoville numbers for every bottle.
The Five Sauces From This Run
Heat is on our own 1 to 10 Barbaro Mojo Cuban heat scale, mildest first:
- Jalabáo, 3: jalapeño and green bell pepper. Our mildest.
- Piñazo, 6: pineapple and habanero with a little Carolina Reaper.
- Best Day Ever, 8: mango and habanero with a little Carolina Reaper.
- El Havanero, 9: habanero and tomato, the hottest of our everyday line.
- Matanza, 10: habanero plus Carolina Reaper, our only extreme sauce. It goes fast every run.
Between them they have won 16 awards across 8 competitions. The full award record has the photos.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Barbaro Mojo hot sauce made?
Barbaro Mojo hot sauce is made in small batches in Miami. Our mojo base is made in house, and each sauce is cooked, filled and labeled in a small run.
How much hot sauce does Barbaro Mojo make in a year?
About 6,000 bottles a year across our five sauces. For scale, Tabasco makes roughly 700,000 bottles a day, so our whole year is less than 1% of one of their days.
Does Barbaro Mojo use fresh peppers?
Yes. The peppers, garlic and onion go in fresh. Our labels list no garlic powder, onion powder, pepper extract or natural flavor.
Does Barbaro Mojo hot sauce have preservatives?
Four of our five sauces contain small amounts of food-safe preservatives (potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate) carried over from the sour orange juice in our mojo. Piñazo is made with a pineapple juice mojo and has none.
How is Barbaro Mojo different from Tabasco or Cholula?
Tabasco is a fermented sauce made from a pepper mash aged up to three years, and Cholula lists water as its first ingredient with garlic powder and natural flavor. Barbaro Mojo cooks fresh peppers, garlic and onion with tomatoes or fruit into a Cuban mojo base of sour orange and garlic, so it tastes citrus and garlic forward before the heat.
Do I need to refrigerate Barbaro Mojo after opening?
Yes, for the best freshness. Shake well before serving and keep it in the refrigerator after opening.