Author: Scott Roberts

This jar of Mr. Naga Hot Pepper Pickle was shipped to me from the UK by Alexis Holliman, as this was one of his favorite naga chile products and he was eager to see my take on it. Overall my favorite chile pepper would have to be a nice, sweet habanero, but I also love the taste and fire of bhut jolokia/naga jolokia/naga morich, so I was hoppin’ to test out this chile sauce/salsa.

It’s always great to see the online chilehead sites continue to grow and evolve, even if it may be something as simple as acquiring a fresh new look and layout. Two such hot food sites that have received a New Year’s revamping are The Hot Pepper and The Hot Zone Online.

The Hot Pepper is the biggest and best chile pepper message boards. Dan the webmaster has recently upgraded the forums software to version 4.0.0 of vBulletin, and with it gave it a much-needed sprucing up of the styles and colors.

One of my favorite blogs – not just fiery foods-oriented but of all subject matters – The Hot Zone Online has gotten a facelift. Full disclosure here: I helped design the new theme for Joe and Linda Levinson, the site’s owners. I have to add that it was a pleasure and honor to work with them on getting the HZO blog reskinned. Be on the lookout in the coming days as sidebar elements are consolidated and moved, pages are added, and things are tweaked here and there to improve the site overall.

TheChileMan.org is once again having an annual chile pepper growing contest. For 2010 the type of qualifying pod is any capsicum pubescens variety, but instead of seeing how long you can get one to grow, the object is to see how fat you can get one. Go to http://thechileman.org/fat_rocoto.php for more details or to sign up.

I wasn’t exactly blown away with the previous Sun Pony product I had put through the paces, which was their habanero-based DC Redbone Hot Sauce. It boasted a mighty fine armament of firepower in the chile pepper department, but honestly lacked a good, cohesive taste that otherwise would have made it a sauce one would go to again and again to perk up your meals.

Thankfully Sun Pony has a sauce available I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to recommend in their Shak Shak Gourmet Jerk Sauce. It doesn’t aim to reinvent the wheel; it is basically a standard jerk sauce and performs that job with remarkable astuteness.

If you’re unfamiliar with jerk sauces or seasonings, it’s similar to an American-style barbecue taste yet still light years away from it. Jerk flavoring will almost always contain the peculiar flavors of allspice fused with other spices and ingredients such as chile peppers, nutmeg, cinnamon, garlic, cloves and scallions (green onions). It’s a unique coalescing of tastes that defies simple categorization.

Shak Shak is another winner from the last The Hot Pepper Awards, this time claiming a First Place prize in the Specialty Sauces category.

David Stehnike is an organic farmer based in Oregon who aims not to have just another crushed chile product in his Dave’s Dragon Dust, but the highest-quality, freshest and hottest overall. By God, I think maybe he’s accomplished that, because this stuff makes most other pure chile seasonings seem tame, limp and over-dried by comparison. That’s actually not meant as a put-down towards anyone else, but it’s meant as a compliment to Dragon Dust. If fresh chile peppers are not readily available in your kitchen and you’re in the need for a rapid shot of scalding heat in your dishes, Dragon Dust may be the next best thing.

From the Las Cruces [Nex Mexico] Sun News:

EYE ON RESEARCH: NMSU produces super-flavored chile
By Justin Bannister/For the Sun-News
Posted: 12/28/2009 12:00:00 AM MST

LAS CRUCES – Prepare to take your enchiladas, burritos and anything else made from chile to a whole new level. Researchers at New Mexico State University’s Chile Pepper Institute have partnered with Las Cruces-based Biad Chili Products LLC to produce a super-flavored chile, bred to have five times the aroma and flavor compounds of similar chiles grown today.

The chile is part of the NuMex Heritage lines, derived from seeds that were frozen in the 1960s from the original plant strains.

Dr. Paul Bosland, director of the Chile Pepper Institute, said decades of breeding practices that emphasized the traits of plant yield and disease resistance have caused several green chile varieties to lose their signature taste and aroma. The new chile peppers still have beneficial traits for farmers but also have 500 percent more flavor…

2009 turned out great for the site. Earlier this year I decided to change the focus from a plethora of topics to almost exclusively spicy foods. I’ve tried to work hard at developing the kind of hot sauce/fiery food blog that I would want to read, and hopefully some of you folks have liked what you’ve seen. I feel 2010 is going to be an even bigger. I’m really excited about the coming year and what is in store for this site…

I have been an avid reader of Scott Roberts’s blog for some time and to be asked to write an article for his blog is a tremendous honour. I hope I do you all justice!

I write for The English Chilli Company over in well, um, England. The blog was set up to review chilli related products and is a labour of love – we are trying to catalogue every chilli product we can find!

So to be asked by Scott to write for his blog is a nerve wracking experience – firstly, us English must appear a funny group of people to those of you in the USA – having bad teeth, liking cricket and spelling Chile differently – Chilli.

There is a well established and fast growing chilli scene over here in the UK, we have plenty of fine sauce companies such as Chilli Pepper Pete, the UK’s best chilli magazine – The Chile Foundry and our very own Darth Naga who reviews hot sauces with no fear.

However when selecting the product I was going to review, the decision was simple, my favourite sauce brand is CaJohn’s. They are without doubt a fantastic and original hot sauce maker – they have some awesome brands in their collection and they always innovate. The real clincher however, is the fact that the sauces have some of the best tastes around…

I would like to wish EVERYONE a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year. Please remember what’s important in your life, and work hard and stay positive.

From John “DEFCON Creator” Dilley:

CALLING ALL MANUFACTURERS AND HOT SAUCE AFICIONADOS!!!

I’ve been in recent contact with Chip Hearn at Peppers. I told him I’ve been receiving a number of emails from bloggers and other hot sauce enthusiasts regarding having a Hot Sauce Extravaganza at their store Peppers, in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. He was definitely up for doing it and has already gotten permission to put up tents and all sorts of crazy stuff to make it quite a memorable experience. The Peppers store itself is something to behold. If you’ve never been there, this would be a perfect opportunity for a very cool road trip.

I’m looking to see how many people would be interested in something like this. I think it would be a ton of fun, and a great chance for people to meet up with a number of manufacturers, hang out for an afternoon, and just plain have a good time. There would be plenty of sampling going on, and heck, I might even bring down my turkey fryers and throw a Deathmatch together.

This would also be a great opportunity for newer companies to get their name out, as I think the turnout would be pretty good. As many of you know, who have been to hot sauce shows big and small, it’s all about having fun, meeting people, and just having an all-around good time.

We are tentatively looking at some time in May, when the weather is usually pretty good. If you are at all interested in something like this, please email me at john (at) defconsauces.com [replace the “(at)” with a “@”]. Chip will also be inviting some local vendors from his area as well…

Sun Pony DC Rebone Hot Sauce is a recent winner in The Hot Pepper Awards, garnering a 3rd place win in the Habanero Sauce category. Their website proclaims of the sauce “…it represents the true flavors of Washington DC. From the Native Indians to today’s multicultural mix of the city’s urban landscape. This flavor transmits excitement that is so hot and tasty in every drop, it’s addictive.” Wow, this description in concert with the 3rd place standing really piqued my interest. I was expecting something truly unique and special that would have both the taste and compatibility of a half dozen cuisines. The same webpage boasted “It is made with Naga Jolokia, the world’s hottest pepper currently grown only in Costa Rica.” Well, everyone knows that’s totally wrong, but I was willing to overlook that erroneous statement simply because I was excited to test this puppy out.

Another solid winner of a sauce is Pepper’s Georgia Peach and Vidalia Onion Hot Sauce. This is a product that I heard rumblings about a few years back, and was reminded again of it recently from Brian Meagher of HotSauceDaily.com when he had shipped me a test bottle to give the old college try. Brian has raved about this sauce and considers it one of his and his wife’s go-to condiments.

After I had my first taste, it won my taste buds over big time. I love the stuff, and was even able to persuade my own wife to give it a shot on tacos (more on that later). Even though she’s not a chilehead and is highly fussy about what kinds of pepper sauces she uses, if any, she’s hooked on Georgia Peach and Vidalia Onion Hot Sauce as well.

While this may sound all hunky-dory, the one drawback is that I don’t find this sauce extremely versatile. Despite it being sweet and fruity, it’s not a very good dessert sauce. If you’re on the lookout for a blazing burn in your mouth, keep searching – this stuff ain’t all that hot. But what it’s good on – Mexican foods and grilled meats – it absolutely excels on. One thing I’m dying to try this out on is a batch of chicken wings. That’s high on my to-do list.

Enough of that. Let’s get down to the nitty gritty and analyze this sauce to see what makes it tick…

December has been a busy month at the ChileFoundry here in the UK; we have had lots of special offers to promote from our UK manufacturers and retailers in the build up to the big day.

This month seemed to be the time when we got all the dates for next year’s major UK chilli events, which are growing rapidly in popularity to an extent that the biggest one the West Dean Chilli Fiesta has now been extended to a full 3 days, each year there are queues to get in.

Darth Naga one of our intrepid reporters has been tasting one of the hottest UK manufactured sauces, including a video of a taste test of…

Based out of Ettalong Beach, New South Wales, Australia (approximately one hour north of Sydney), Neil Smith of The Hippy Seed Company is known for breeding and selling chilli pepper plants, seeds and powders, which include some of the hottest capsicum varieties in the world, such as the hallowed Naga/Bhut Jolokia. He’s recently began developing sauces, which by some reports produce an mouth-numbing burn that hardcore heat freaks would love and a taste foodies would admire.

Neil is probably gained the most notoriety for doing his on-camera Chilli Tests and Chilli Sauce Tests on his YouTube channel. He’s bravely consumed everything from the ultra-nuclear Trinidad Scorpion chilli pepper to some of the world’s hottest natural and extract sauces while providing the global video viewing audience his reactions and thoughts. With this unique angle, Neil is quickly becoming one of the most well-known – and entertaining – reviewers of fiery eats.

As a side note, in honor of the Aussies (and everyone else in the English-speaking world outside of North America), I’ve ditched the Western Hemisphere spelling of “chile” in this post in favor of “chilli”.;-) Cheers!

Scott: What are the origins of The Hippy Seed Company?

Neil: I started Peninsula Lawnmowing in 1998 and was always in peoples’ gardens, so I started taking cuttings and I was given plants by my customers. As a hobby I built a little website and had a few non hot types of chillis and capsicums. I put some seeds of the plants I grew…