Author: Spicefreak

Something Wicked

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Happy tuesday again, everyone. This week, I’ve got something wicked to show you, from down in somerset.

The “Thirsty Dog” barbecue and sweet pepper “Roco Loco” sauces, from The Wicked Chilli. One using an unusual blend of jalapeño and naga chillies to heat up its cola and smoked paprika base. While the other mixes rare rocoto chillies with a more standard, unnamed variety and some red bells, for a purer pepper flavour.

For once, though, it’s not the flavour of those rare chillies that excites me but the unique feel of the rocoto’s heat. The unique gum tingle which made me love Char Man’s Caribbean sauce and which is integral to a few specific peruvian dishes.

I’m a huge fan of that pepper and I’m really hoping that its prominent position on the label of today’s red chilli sauce means that The Wicked Chilli are using it to the fullest. Yet I’m also very curious what the unsmoked jalapeño and naga bring to the flavour of their barbecue sauce.

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Majestic Cocoa

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Hey folks, remember how I just randomly mentioned Queen Majesty again, last week? For the first time in ages?

Well, believe it or not, it was entirely coincidental and today’s feature was an extremely last minute find. But I do have another of their sauces to show you and this one, in particular, is one that I’ve been waiting a long time for. Ever since the reveal of Hot Ones‘ season seventeen line-up.

The number six of that era, Queen Majesty’s Cocoa Ghost. Which stood out, to me, from the moment I first saw it, as something truly unique.

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Dalston Double

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Hello again, everyone. Today, we’re looking at a sauce that’s been gaining a lot of traction, lately, but that I still hadn’t heard hide nor hair about until it arrived on my doorstep. A gift from my aunt, in london, to whom this week’s product is quite local.

This is Common Sanity’s Dalston Sunshine – The name of the sauce telling you exactly what borough its company are based in and their own hinting at an interest in mental health. With a portion of the company’s profits going to charity for that very reason.

Yet the common “Common Sanity” name, as a whole, is apparently a play on commensality, the act of communal eating. Not anything to do with the word “Common”. Which is just as well because, as much as it may look like a common caribbean mustard sauce, their Dalston Sunshine’s main ingredient is actually the fatalii chilli. An african relative of the habanero which, despite growing popularity in recent years, is still far from “common”.

And it’s not today’s only unexpected fusion flavour, either, since my little care package also contained a second item from the company:

Not a sauce, this time, but a chinese or filipino-style crispy oil. Filled with mexican chillies, seeds and nuts for a beautifully rich sounding, yet equally unorthodox blend that they call Fuego Greeze.

I’m very eager to try them both out.

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CBDBQ

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Hey folks, last week we saw a fantastic szechuan-style sauce, marred by a name that paid homage to a particularly crass joke. So, today, we’re going to keep things rather classier, with what is easily the most fancily packaged product that I’ve ever featured:

This stylish little chipotle sauce was sent to me by Chilli No. 5, who’ve clearly drawn inspiration from big name perfume brands for their presentation. Yet they still manage to allude to high-end cuisine with the sauce smear at the base of their metallic green logo.

The colour of which also hints at what sets this particular product apart from the rest of their range: Its CBD content.

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The Szechuan Sauce

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Alright everyone, it’s time to get schwifty, so pull down your pants and-

Okay, no. I’m not finishing that reference. Rick and Morty really isn’t the highbrow, adult comedy that its fans would like you to think and that level of toilet humour is just gross. Even for a chilli reviewer, like myself, who inevitably has to hear a tonne of it.

But, the show’s supposed intelligence aside, there is something else that it’s known for. Which is the absolute ridiculousness of the szechuan sauce debacle, caused by the start of its third season. The raids on McDonald’s stores, across the US, all in search of a long-discontinued tie-in to the original Mulan film.

Frankly, I’ve no idea why people cared so much about a simple szechuan sauce – Especially one with such an uninspired list of ingredients – but that absurd uproar did have some interesting knock-on effects. Including inspiring a whole host of more authentic chinese flavours in the american hot sauce market. As well as a few further afield and even one or two here, in the UK.

Today, I want to look at one example, in particular, which comes to us from Balefire, in durham:

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This Ain’t Tabasco!

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Hey folks, today I’ve got something a little strange for you. Something that I just randomly came across in one of my local supermarkets and felt I had to feature. Because, while I’ve talked about McIlhenny Co.’s Tabasco Brand Scorpion Sauce and their Chipotle Cola Marinade, I’ve never seen a “Tobasco” sauce before.

Except, of course, when people misspell it online.

Today’s item, however, has the word slapped right across its centre, beneath the “Dipitt” company name, and it looks a lot more like lawsuit dodging than a mistake, to me. But how does it really compare to the original?

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Dark and Saucy

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Hello again everyone and welcome to another of my weekly reviews. Today, I’m looking at a freebie from our friends at Chilli of the Valley and it’s their korean one. Their KBBQ-style Soseu.

A huge departure from the Black Death that they sent me last time, in heat if not in colour, because this one is actually one of their mildest products. Made for intense flavour, rather than that reaper fire, and only given the extreme heat in an alternate, extract version.

If any of you want to see that, let me know and I’ll bring Chilli of the Valley back again for this year’s birthday review. But, in the mean time, I’m looking to unwind after a rough few days with something rather gentler.

Let’s give the Soseu a go!

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Coming in to Port

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Hey folks, how’s it going? It’s tuesday again and, honestly, things have been a little rough for my blog work lately. I’m doing a lot of other things on the side and it’s been a bit of a struggle to keep up with even my weekly reviews. Let alone all of the weekend recipes and random thursday things which I feel like I aught to be doing.

But, while I might not be able to offer you any of those extras, right now, I can at least provide you with a bit more than the norm in today’s post. Not the usual one or two sauces. Not even three.

No, the full on five of Spice Island Chilli’s entire range:

Each one a different heat and flavour, wrapped in its own tale of maritime history. Yet the whole lot hailing from a single portsmouth company, with a distinctive style throughout. Meaning that I’d probably just say the same things five times if I were to review them all separately, anyway.

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Dew-Over

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Welcome back, everyone! This week, I’d like to return to one of our old favourite suppliers, the Chilli Alchemist. Because they, in turn, have returned one of my old favourite items – The 💀Philosopher’s Dew!

Now known simply as their “Dew” and focussing rather more heavily on its citrus content, so I’m eager to see just how much it’s changed. But, same sauce or not, it won’t be alone in today’s review.

Russell, the current company owner, has added another new product to the range, alongside it. And this one appears to be all his own:

A “Gold” sauce which, rather than taking after the old 💀Aurum, promises to be a fruity, pineapple sriracha. Much like the redone Dorset Punch.

Let’s take a closer look at the pair, shall we?

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Extra Hot Art

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Hey folks, it’s tuesday again and, today, we’re taking a look a Geki Kara. A sauce by 3D Spice which stood out massively when it was featured among Bauce Brothers’ Hot 100. Albeit not necessarily for the right reasons.

In fact, I saw a fair bit of controversy around it, at the time, over its high price and the anime-esque, scantily clad, demon girl on its label. Implying that it might not have been the sauce, itself, which they were selling.

Perhaps I’ll mention her again, later on, but, now that all of the initial criticism has died down, what I really want to talk about is whether or not it was actually deserved. Because, with the bottle here in front of me, it’s clear that a lot more has gone into making the product than is immediately obvious online.

Hopefully there’s some real flavour locked inside, rather than it simply relying on a seductive exterior, like people thought.

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