Spicefreak

Alright everyone, it’s wednesday and I’ve just had one of the most disappointing reviews of my career but, today, it’s time for a different sort of suffering. Because it’s my birthday and that means extract sauce:

This is Ten Minute Burn. The original extract sauce from The Chilli Pepper Company, making waves long before their Hell Unleashed made headlines. So I’m not expecting quite the same level of stomach churning heat but I’m still going to be very careful with this one.

It has a reputation to it and I know full well what the company are capable of. So I won’t be underestimating it, despite my eagerness to see how everything began.

This bottle is tiny – A mere thirty mil – yet, for an extract sauce, that’s not unreasonable at all. This is not the kind of product which you typically use in large amounts. And that fact alone can lend a sauce quite the ominous air.

But The Chilli Pepper Company don’t just leave things there. They pack this item’s artwork full of flames and a small shot of the devil himself, in order to really ram home the fact that it’s made for heat. Even if it’s probably a lot hotter than most of the gimmicky products out there doing the same.

Certainly, as I pour my display spoonful, this one smells like an absolute ass-kicking monstrosity. Equal parts dark, deadly pepper extract and stunningly bright, yet smooth fruit – Most of which seems to be mango. And, indeed, its smooth consistency does seem to be that of a relatively thin mango sauce.

The dark, reddish-brown colour, however, is all extract, chilli and tomato. Which is an interesting contrast, to say the least.

As, when I raise my actual tasting stick to my mouth, is the mix of that smooth texture and its instant, sharp tongue burn. Bitter and chemical against the fruit’s natural sweetness and building to a serious

heat that’s a tad more throaty and far, far stronger even than I’d expected. Making it one of the most brutal extract sauces out there.

It doesn’t do a lot to hide the flavour of that extract, unfortunately, but the Ten Minute Burn definitely lives up to its name with how long its intense burn lingers. Easily sticking around for namesake ten minutes and making me worry about my ability to hold it down the whole time, despite the mere cocktail stick tip that I swallowed.

It’s not the best tasting of extract sauces, by any means, but those seeking extreme suffering or just looking to add a drop to amp up meals will find exactly what they’re looking for in this Chilli Pepper Company product. And its tropical fruit undertones do go a long way to making the overcooked, chemical taste of that concentrated chilli palatable. Especially for use in indian curries or middle eastern cooking, where the brightness of it will really shine.

Still, though, there’s only so much of this sauce that you can reasonably add to food before the heat becomes unbearable so, realistically, most of its flavour will wind up being masked by whatever meal you’re eating. And thus it should work with almost anything.

It contains:

Fresh Bhut Jolokia and Naga Viper chillies, pineapple juice, lemon juice, tomatoes, mango, molasses, 7.3 million chilli flavour, garlic, herbs and spices.

And you can find more from its chillies here and here. But, honestly, it’s the “chilli flavour” and the sheer intensity that it provides which you’re buying the Ten Minute Burn for.