Kiss the Devil: The spiciest wine in Virginia

If you like your glass of wine with an extra kick, Kiss the Devil is just what you’ve been looking for.

Our latest adventure in the Blue Ridge Mountains took us to Peaks of Otter Winery and Orchard where we had the pleasure of experiencing the lip numbing booze.

Peaks of Otter Winery and Johnson’s Orchard

This little plot of Bedford County, Virginia has been home to the Johnson Family since the 1750s. They planted their first apple tree in 1919 and today the Johnson’s Family Orchards include around 7,500 apple trees in addition to a variety of pear, peach, and vine bearing fruit.  

Peaks of Otter Winery is Virginia’s first all fruit winery made from the very fruit harvested from the orchards. There are 30 unconventional yet tasty varieties each with their own quirky description making them almost impossible not to try. This selection includes:

BlueBerry Muffin  – “Like my wife Nancy – Beautiful but expensive”

Salty Frog – “Just like drinking a margarita! Add lime and salt!”

Puff – “Light apple and Dragon Fruit flavoring”

Mango Tango – “An apple mango sweet wine that will have you dancing in the street”

Café Vino – “WILL WAKE YOU UP or not, but great coffee taste!”

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The Spiciest Wine in Virginia

At Peaks of Otter Winery, there is no pinky-up pretentious wine tasting experience. Employees pour tastings into small plastic tasting cups. “Chili Dawg” is served with a squirt of cheese whiz onto the back of your hand. Served like Tequila, you take the cheese first followed by the shot of wine. The resulting flavor? Chili Dog! The heat in Peaks of Otter’s “Chili Dawg” is of course nothing when compared with “Kiss the Devil”.

According to the winery, “Kiss the Devil” is actually “better for basting than tasting”. Made with over 30 varieties of hot pepper including Ghost Pepper, this spicy wine is so hot it is dangerous…dangerous to make that is. According to staff, fumes emitted from the peppers during the grinding and fermenting process are extremely potent and can burn the eyes and nose. Luckily, guests are only involved in the tasting not the making!

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I Kissed the Devil!

We ordered our wine tasting selection at the counter, 8 tastings for $8 bucks. Our bartender filled 8 little plastic cups with the colorful liquid, marking “Kiss the Devil” with a special sticker.

Scott and I went through each tasting one by one, carefully critiquing the flavor profile. While we might have looked like professional wine enthusiasts to the others in the room, we were really just trying to delay that last spicy shot we knew that was waiting for us.

Scott picked up the last plastic cup and I picked up mine. We slowly peeled off the “Kiss the Devil” sticker reminding us one last time of the hellish fire we were about to experience. Bottoms up.

Peppers and heat. Kiss the Devil could be described as full-bodied and complex with not hints but overt notes of fiery hotness. The medley of 30 peppers comes through immediately and lingers on the tongue and throat only to be cooled down with a sweet chaser of the “Mango Tango”. We did it.

We are both members of the “Kiss the Devil” club and have the sticker to prove it.

Are you brave enough to kiss the devil?

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