Spicefreak

Hello again, my fellow fiery food fans, today, we’re making a return to Byron Bay. A place and company that I’m sure you’ll remember from my coconut curry sauce comparison.

This time around, though, the labelling may be the same but the sauce is very different. It’s their mango chilli sauce:

Or, if you read the fine print, their Smokin’ Mango Chilli Sauce. A blend of mango, cayenne, jalapeño and chipotle that’s sure to be nothing like their more usual

📽️habanero range topper📽️.

It is, after all, a completely different colour. Red with chillies, not orange from its fruit. So let’s see if it tastes as different as it looks.

As I pour my standard spoonful, today’s sauce is already subverting my expectations. It doesn’t smell tropical and fruity but of heavily spiced red chillies with a light tang. A cumin-forward, almost ketchupy aroma that most certainly carries over into its taste.

Yet, while the Smokin’ Mango does use tomato as its second fruit, it’s the red jalapeño and cayenne that come across most, beneath its signature spice. A surprisingly strong pepper note, given the amount in there, that offsets the sauce’s golden syrup sweetness with a much needed hit of savoury.

A sweetness that the mango only serves to amplify. And I mean only.

The namesake fruit of the Smokin’ Mango may be contributing to its thick yet easily pourable texture but it really doesn’t make itself known in the taste. Despite being the largest ingredient by weight.

And, for that matter, nor do I taste the chipotle. The contents of this bottle are quite different from what I remember, back when Byron Bay had production in britain.

Previously, it was a smooth sauce that used its fruit to carry a savoury smokiness all throughout. Much like my chipotle mango sorbet. Now it’s more of a cumin and pepper ketchup without any obvious fruit or smoke at all. And I definitely don’t remember its chunks of pepper skin and seeds.

I like it a lot and I’ll happily use it in place of regular ketchup. Especially over shepherd’s pie. I’m not disappointed in the slightest but I am a little confused as to how this medium,

2/11

Heat

sauce can taste so different, purely due to what country it was made in. Do australian ingredients really taste that different or is there something else going on?

Here’s what supposedly goes into it:

Mango (26%), Tomato, Water, Jalapeno Chilli (10%), Cider Vinegar, Onion, Golden Syrup, Brown Sugar, Chipotle Chilli (3%), Cayenne Chilli (2%), Garlic, Salt.

And yes, I would recommend it. Just not to the mango and/or chipotle fans that it’s liable to disappoint.