> It seems to me that you "hedged your bet" against the alcohol's
> being a reliable sole preservative in your own sauce. So, we both appear
> to be a bit suspicious of alcohol's safety margin when relied upon alone as
> the preserving agent. I guess the questions a
>
> (i) WHY are we suspicious; and
> (ii) SHOULD we, or to WHAT EXTENT, should we be
> suspicious. On my part, it's because I don't know the answer.
>
> So, actually, although we are approaching the problem from different
> perspectives (you obviously have some canning experience which I do not
> as a practical matter), you approached the problem with something of a
> raised eyebrow yourself -- just like me.
>
> It sounds to me that you and I are more or less headed in the same
> direction -- moving away from the canning aspects into relying on alcohol,
> and in your case, perhaps some additional salt.


Your drawing too many conclusions from one data point :-)
What I was trying to achieve was a habanero sauce that didn't taste like
vinegar. Other peppers are good fermented or preserved with vinegar,
but I don't like habaneros that way. I cooked the peppers to make them
grind up better and to denature any enzymes. I cooked them in the
sealed jar so I wouldn't have to do it under a fume hood.

The bottle of pepper sauce was stored at room temperature in the
cupboard, but it had a nasty habit of spewing when I opened it, so I
dumped it into the sauce jar in the fridge.

I have very little doubt that this stuff was shelf stable, but I store
open jars of just about everything in the refrigerator. I only made one
jar of this stuff.

13% alcohol is near the upper range for what fungi can tolerate, except
for wine yeasts. I'm sure some bacteria can live in that enviroment,
but I can't think of any -- and they would probably need oxygen
(acetobacter). The salt is just for flavor; I used salted wine because
there's no excise tax on it because it's not drinkable.

The resulting sauce was not very good, but it was useful for cooking with.

An interesting experiment, and less elaborate than mine, would be to
slit some hot peppers (or cut them in half), put them in a jar, and
cover with a fortified wine; see what happens if they are capped and
stored at room temperature for a month or three. I'll bet nothing happens.

Best regards,
Bob