Spicefreak

Welcome to the new year, everyone! Today may be the seventh but it’s also the first tuesday of twenty-twenty and time for my annual green sauce review – A “new” pepper for a new year, if you will.

This year’s sauce, however, is a little more than just another blend of herbs and under-ripe chilli. It also represents a new craze that’s been sweeping the nation. One for a rather different green item, known as cannabidiol isolate, or CBD oil.

It’s hot stuff – At least in the marketing sense – and there’s nowhere that it’s caught on more than in brighton, so you know exactly which company I’m talking about, this week. Yet it’s also something of an eighteen plus topic, so I’ll be leaving my product shot and the explanation of what exactly CBD oil is until after that “Continue reading” button.

So this is BHS’ Cannabis sauce. It’s not made with the actual herb, for obvious legal reasons, but it does contain both cannabis and hemp extracts. As well as the columbus hops which, as mentioned in my Hoptimo review, are quite closely related.

How do they get away with it? Simple. Hemp seeds don’t contain any significant amount of tetrahydrocannabinol – THC, for short – and the related cannabidiol, in the CBD oil, doesn’t affect the brain in the same way.

It doesn’t result in a high, or in any other form of intoxication, so it’s perfectly legal. Yet, while it isn’t psychotropic, it is still psycho-active. Despite what some people may claim.

Cannabidiol is one of many compounds known as “cannabinoids”. Some of which, like it and THC, are found in plants. Others, however, are produced naturally, within the human body, in order to control a wide variety of aspects of the brain and nervous system. Mood, sleep, pain-sense and appetite are all affected by cannabinoids.

So does this mean that CBD oil affects all those things? No.

While cannabidiol has been shown to decrease pain and swelling in rodents, no such effects have been proven in humans and studies have been quite inconclusive on almost every other supposed benefit it might possess.

The one actually proven medical benefit of this substance is in preventing epileptic seizures and the dosage that that requires would amount to fourteen bottles of Brighton Hot Stuff’s sauce each day.

The CBD oil that they use does affect the brain but the quantity in today’s product will not do so to any significant degree. At most, it might numb the burn from their bird’s eye and dutch green chilli blend a tad.

So let’s ditch the medical science and crack out the spoon:

Despite the relatively low amount of that active ingredient, it’s not hard to spot the dark, green oil in this sauce.

I did give the bottle a light shake, before serving, but I’d suggest trying a stronger one, if you can. Separation’s a real problem here.

But, while that light green with flecks look isn’t the prettiest, its taste is something gorgeous.

Bright and citrussy, with a soft green undertone of both chilli and that hoppy herbiness, seen in Hoptimo. It’s very in your face and a little bit sharp, when it first touches your tongue, yet it soon mellows out and slides down smoothly.

BHS’ “Cannabis” sauce hasn’t had its oil emulsified into it, like the E triple C‘s “Chance”, so it isn’t full on creamy. Yet that oil still clearly builds upon and amplifies the already present smooth and mellow qualities of that green and herby base.

Plus, as was the case in their Armaggeddon, Brighton Hot Stuff haven’t actually used any citrus here. The product’s lemon-like front notes come entirely from cider vinegar, making them subtly different from real lemon, with a slightly oakier tang.

It’s a wonderful and quite unique green sauce that I’m going to love over white fish and pizza. And those are just the first great uses to come to mind. Other ideas of mine involve thai green curries, tomatillo salsa and mixing with yoghurt to put on bhajis or lamb kofta.

Regardless of what you do with it, though, it’s not going to add a lot of heat. It’s Brighton Hot Stuff’s mildest product, at little more than a high

1/11

Heat

and it doesn’t even reach that until after I’ve swallowed.

This “Cannabis” sauce doesn’t tingle my tongue in the slightest, and it barely burns my throat, so I can only recommend it on flavour. But what a flavour it is, dear readers. I think I might be hooked!

Here’s what goes into it:

Cider vinegar, green chillies, organic hemp oil, sea salt, maple syrup, bird’s eye chillies, CBD isolate, columbus hops and agar.

And none of those ingredients are actually addictive. It’s just that good.