Import

Trinidad Tabasco

Spicefreak3 Comments

Hello again, everyone. It’s time for another hot sauce review and today I have a very high profile import, courtesy of Dr. Burnorium’s Hot Sauce Emporium.

Yes, this week’s product is from McIlhenny Co.’s famous Tabasco brand, named after the state of mexico where their peppers first originated. And yet, this is not a tabasco pepper sauce.

No, this is the company’s extra hot scorpion sauce. Made with forty percent trinidad scorpion chillies and much loved, throughout america, despite the more fanatical of chilli lovers usually writing Tabasco off for its low heat, heavy use of vinegar and general lack of nuance.

So, given its unusually positive reception, I’m very curious to see what’s won people over about this particular product. Or if american chilli fans really are just all about the heat.

Continue reading →

Mexican Sky

Spicefreak1 Comment

Hola, mi amigos! Tomorrow is mexican independence day. So, today, we’re going to take a little look at something thematically appropriate, imported by Mex Grocer.

This huge bottle holds Ki’ Gourmet’s Cielo Rojo. Or “Red Sky”, for those of you who don’t speak spanish. A blackberry and chipotle morita sauce, which sounds unlike anything that I’ve had before.

Continue reading →

The Death Star

Spicefreak2 Comments

Hey there everybody, it’s thursday again and time for me to review another freebie from Heat Hot Sauce. A sauce shop situated outside of the UK – Hence it not fitting into my usual tuesday feature – but one with far better international shipping than some and a wide selection of interesting sauces at reasonable prices.

Today’s item was apparently made with them in mind but its actual producer is a company called “Spicy Ninja Sauce”, based in Hawai’i.

So, given their island home and the fertility of volcanic soil, it’s only natural that it contains tropical fruit. Yet we’re not looking at anything as ordinary as mango, papaya, pineapple, coconut or even lilikoi – A local breed of yellow passion-fruit used in some of their sauces.

No, their weapon of choice, for this one, is something that I’ve only ever seen once before, on import from germany. It’s the legendary star fruit, or carambola, which almost everyone has heard of but few have ever tasted. A fruit that apparently blends hints of grape, citrus, pear and cantaloupe melon.

My history with the carambola has it pegged a little differently, though – As a blend of pineapple, unripe lemon and cucumber that was absolutely disgusting when skewered and chocolate-coated. Yet I’m pretty sure that I didn’t have it at its best.

After all, my fruit was green and Spicy Ninja’s sauce is anything but:

DeathStar

It’s a bright orange blend of carrots, star fruit and ghost pepper, themed after the Death Star. And, while it’s purely coincidence that this product caught my attention right now, I definitely appreciate Heat Hot Sauce getting it to me in time for The Rise of Skywalker.

I could not have asked for a better time to show off the D_ _ th S_ ★r O.G. “Weaponized Star Fruit” sauce than alongside the release of Star Wars episode nine!

Continue reading →

Wasabi and Blueberry

Spicefreak6 Comments

Welcome back, everyone, to the last of my importer highlights. At least for a while.

Today, we’re looking at a company called Sous Chef, who previously featured as the suppliers for my rare peppercorn taste test and the bean paste in my mapo tofu.

This time, though, I don’t want to focus on their ingredients. I want to take a look at their import sauce:

soustwo

Why, because these guys don’t import a lot that’s ready to eat but they do import one of the most talked about sauces on Hot Ones. The controversial Ghost Pepper & Blueberry from Bravado Spice Co.

So today, I’ll be looking at that and a little something from the UK that they also stock. But we’ll talk about that item in a bit.

Continue reading →

Laterra on the Web

Spicefreak4 Comments

Hey folks, Today I’m back with another importer highlight but also an apology to Laterra.

In my post about Mex Grocer, I mistakenly referred to their product as their “Savoury Mexican Tomatillo Sauce”, when that was not its name at all. It was merely the product description.

The true name of that sauce was “Michoacan”, after the region that inspired it – A name that I had mistaken for the sauce’s place of origin.

No such mistakes will be made today, however, as I look at another pair of Laterra’s sauces, purchased from Spices on the Web.

Twinterra

Continue reading →

Crazy German Reaper

Spicefreak4 Comments

Hey folks. Having branched out to a second hot sauce importer fairly recently, I feel obliged to follow up on that post with a few more. To really show the full spectrum of suppliers.

But, of course, this post isn’t going to do that. No one post can.

Today, I’m just looking at one such company. One that brings over delicious sauces from germany and one that’s already quite close to my heart.

Today, I’m looking at Grim Reaper Foods but I’m looking at what they import, not what they make, for a change. Just be aware that the company that they stock is another slightly sweary one before you click through to read this article in full.

Continue reading →

Mexican Import

Spicefreak6 Comments

Greetings everyone and welcome back to another tuesday chilli review.

Now that we’re well into my third year, I’ve covered a lot of condiments and struck a healthy balance between local and imported foodstuffs but there’s one respect in which I’ve been a little remiss: The vast majority of my imports have come from a single company. From Hot Headz.

And sure, they are the UK’s largest chilli product importer but they aren’t the only one. So today, as a small start to setting things straight, I’m going to look at a couple of sauces from Mex Grocer instead.

mexsauce.jpg

Continue reading →