Hot sauce maker Elixir Sauce Co. has established a production facility in Spokane Valley and plans to ramp up production with the increase in space.

New equipment will soon increase efficiency up to tenfold at the production center, a 1,300-square-foot space at 11816 E. Mansfield, Suite 2, co-owner Kristopher Pockell says. 

“We just placed the order for a whole bunch more equipment that will help us produce faster — more efficient bottling and labeling,” Pockell says. “Right now, pretty much every bottle gets labeled by me.”

Elixir has five hot sauce blends: Smoky Ghost, Smoky Habanero, Rum Honey Habanero, Garlic Jalapeno, and Garlic Fresno. The recipes for the smoky sauces were originally created by Pockell’s father, who had sold bottles of homemade hot sauce to friends and co-workers.

Pockell says he briefly considered outsourcing production to a co-packing company instead of setting up Elixir’s own production facility, but he didn't want to sacrifice control of the process.

“We really care about quality,” Pockell says. “Every pepper that goes in every bottle of sauce, we cut the top off, we cut it in half, we inspect it inside and out — every single one.”

In 2021, Zak Steele, Pockell’s partner in a previous software company they owned together, tasted Pockell’s homemade hot sauce and proposed starting a hot sauce company together. Soon after, Pockell and his wife, Rebekah Pockell, teamed up with Zak Steele and his wife, Ashley Steele, to create Elixir Sauce Co.

Kristopher Pockell handles business administration and production processing line setup for the company. Rebekah Pockell holds the Good Manufacturing Practices certification and oversees manufacturing and logistics. Zak Steele handles bottling and finances, while Ashley Steele handles labeling and assists on many aspects of production.

Elixir had previously been operating since mid-2021 out of shared-use commercial kitchen A Prep Kitchen, in Spokane Valley, selling online and at area farmers markets. Kristopher Pockell says that sales have doubled each year of production — in 2025, Elixir sold between 6,000 and 8,000 bottles of hot sauce.

“We are on track to double again this year,” Pockell says.

In addition to selling at farmers markets, Elixir’s products are now sold by several Inland Northwest retailers, such as Scale House Market, in Spokane Valley; Northern Quest Resort & Casino’s retail store Windfall, in Airway Heights; Simply Northwest, a Spokane Valley boutique; and at Spokane-based spice company Michlitch Co.

Elixir sauces are also used at some Spokane-area restaurants, including Chowderhead, The Yard Bird Tavern, Remedy, and Market Street Pizza.

The company has also expanded to the Tri-Cities market, where the company’s products can be found in a handful of restaurants. In January, the gift shop at Tri-Cities Airport began selling Elixir hot sauces.

Pockell hired his brother, John Zagajeski, in July 2024 to handle Elixir’s burgeoning sales and marketing. Zagajeski has 25 years of sales experience in the beer industry at various levels.

Zagajeski says he and Elixir’s owners share a loyalty to the local small business community.

“We believe small businesses work better together,” Zagajeski says. “I've worked for small businesses and big ones, and I've seen it work better if you're actually building community.”

In addition to selling Elixir’s products to area retailers and restaurants, the company focuses on sourcing ingredients locally when possible.

“We want to be the No. 1 purchaser of local peppers,” Zagajeski says. “If someone was making glass bottles here, we would buy them here.”

Elixir partners with Vets on the Farm, an agricultural training program for veterans, to grow Fresno chili peppers for the company’s Garlic Fresno sauce.

“They started growing those Fresno peppers for us because we didn't have a local source,” Zagajeski says. 

Last year, Elixir bought 200 pounds of Fresno peppers from Vets on the Farm.

“We met with them a couple of months ago so that they could plan their production for next year,” Pockell says. “We will buy as many peppers from them as we can.”

Zagajeski says now that Elixir has its own production space, the next step is getting Elixir products into Inland Northwest grocery stores, such as Yoke’s Fresh Market and Rosauers Supermarkets.

Pockell says that customers will eventually have the option to pick up orders from the production space, but there are no plans to open a retail space.