Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Swabs High Sierra Chilenos- GONE!

On my way back from a hiking trip up the North Fork Big Pine Creek last weekend I stopped in for a burger at the Portal Store (Doug-hope your back is feeling better). On my way home I wanted to load up on my favorite appetizers to bring back- the one and only Swabs High Sierra Chileno Peppers. Much to my dismay there is now an Auto Parts Store where the packing house used to be outside of Lone Pine. Talking to the gal at the Lone Pine Chevron, they apparently went out of business in January. Bummer!

Anyone know who else markets the rare and tasty Chileno peppers? It would be a shame to have to put the flavor of these tangy treats into my memory vault, never to be experienced again.

http://www.brunosmarketplace.com/

The Sierra Nevada Brand is best.

Mike

Supposedly according a chile pepper expert, this location is the only place in the world that pepper is grown...at least commercially. He got some seeds and sent them on to a few other friends a couple of decades ago.

You're part right, the chileno pepper also grows in the chilean andes mountains where it originates from. it was brought to the high sierras by native andes people that were brought to the inyo county area to work various mines as these people were found to be better suited for working at high dry altitudes. of course they brought their native food items with them. the peppers grew well there with similar climate conditions. the peppers caught on as a favorite with the Inyo locals that still grow them today & can them with the same traditional recipe that swabs used & sierra nevada uses. when i lived in indy in the 60s & 70s we grew them & canned them every year. we migrated to the eastern washington area and of course brought the seeds with us hoping to be able to continue enjoying these peppers unfortunately we could not get them to grow. we then took seeds to a large scale pepper farm owner in central WA to see if he could grow them. he was able to get the plant to sprout but that was all. evidently these peppers are very tempermental about where they're grown. so i have been happily relying on swabs & sierra nevada chiles to enjoy my favorite peppers. hopefully sierra naveda chiles will continue on or i will have to beg some old friends still in the area to grow, can & send some to me.

Jerry Swab turned the business over to his son a few years back and like most offspring's, he ran it into the ground. About a dozen or so years ago, Jerry told me that he was once a partner in the Sierra Nevada Chileno Pepper. Whether that is true or not, I don't know, because this outfit is now located in Lodi, on the other side of the Sierras. Regardless, they were the first "Chileno's" that I remember. As for how or where they were originally created, I was told it was a Basque thing from the owner - but who am I?