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By Darth Naga, July 27, 2010 9:57 am

Right! time for me to intro­duce a NEW fea­ture here at the Chile­foundry! This is an idea myself and Hot Juan have had for some time, but last week was the first proper chance we got to actu­ally imple­ment it, the idea we had was for a series of fea­tur­ettes based on dif­fer­ent chilli and hot­sauce man­u­fac­tur­ers and dis­trib­ut­ors based in the UK and we shall visit these people and then make a short doc­u­ment­ary type video on each one!

I decided to call it “Meet your maker” as i felt that was title that best fits the series!

The ori­ginal idea was to do one long video and go from there, BUT due to You­tube restraints we can only upload it in 10 min chunks, which as it turns out is a good idea as now you can choose the con­tent you want to see!

So the day star­ted off with me stand­ing out­side Hot-Headz HQ on a blaz­ing hot sum­mer day in Stroud knock­ing on the door, luck­ily for me Stu­art was in work that day and not off attend­ing one of the many meet­ings he has, busy man is Stu!! Stu­art invited me inside and then pro­ceeded to give me a little his­tory on Hot-Headz and how the name became fam­ous! If you wanna know a little more about the Com­pany and the people behind it then watch this intro!

After that little bit of his­tory Stu­art went on to give me a little tour of one of the Hot-Headz ware­houses, and we came across a few sauces that caught my eye, me being the curi­ous (Nosey) type i decided this was a prime oppor­tun­ity to dig into Stu­arts vast know­ledge of Hot­sauces and who makes them.

And then came my favour­ite part of the trip…Stuart invited me to see the one room that not alot of people get to see, his own per­sonal sauce col­lec­tion or the “Hot room” as he calls it!
This is TRULY a site to behold, its a sauce col­lect­ors dream and i felt truly priv­iledged that Stu allowed us to film inside the room!

So there you have it, the ins and out of Hot-Headz HQ and the people behind it all, Even though the last video says it all i just want to thank Stu­art McAl­lister for let­ting us film inside his headquar­ters, Hot Juan for doing all the driv­ing and mak­ing this visit pos­sible and Mrs Naga for film­ing it all for us! As a rare treat i will sign off with a little tast­ing video we did at Hot-Headz HQ where Stu­art him­self actu­ally joined us and gave his views on a couple of sauces, so check this vid out and see just what the God­father of the UK hot­sauce move­ment has to say! Till next time chile­fanz, may the sauce be with you!

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By Darth Naga, July 26, 2010 6:23 am

Right back again live and kick­ing from my little break in Yeovil where myself and Mr’s Naga stayed with Hot Juan and his fam­ily for a very pleas­ant few days, but now its back to busi­ness, so lets kick it off with a little some­thing from Blair eh?

Blair’s Queso

For those of you who have been liv­ing under a rock for the past 10 – 15 years, Blair is the US Daddy of the hot­sauce scene, he makes what i con­sider to be some of the freshest and tasti­est sauces out there and has been doing it for about 15 years or so now! The product i have for review today is one of Blairs lesser known items but it non­ethe­less deserves some recog­ni­tion for the reason that it con­tains two of my favour­ite products, chilli and CHEESE!!!

Ingredi­ents: Water, Toma­toes, Cheese mix, Whey mod­i­fied food starch, Malo­dex­trin, Dex­trose, Salt, Xanthan gum, Nat­ural fla­vour­ing, Soy­bean oil, Onions, Cheese enhan­cer, Fire roas­ted Habanero, Mod­i­fied food starch, Green Chil­lies, Pimen­tos, Spices and Jalapeno seasonings.

(Many thanks to www.scorchio.co.uk for the review Jar)

Okay, so i looked at the list of ingredi­ents in “Blairs Queso” and thought to myself “wow, thats alot of ingredi­ents!” and the hor­rible thought imme­di­ately hit me that this was going to have a very “plastic” and chem­ical fla­vour to it, like alot of “cheese” based products and i noted too that the Habanero’s were down very low on the list of ingredi­ents so i was’nt sure this was going to be hot at all. The label is a lovely bright orange with full col­our pic­tures of Jalapenos, onions and cheese, together with the title of the sauce in bold yel­low let­ter­ing and blairs sig­na­ture logo above that.

Upon open­ing the jar and tak­ing a sniff i imme­di­ately recog­nised the chee­sey smell and sur­pris­ingly i could really smell the Habanero’s! It was at this point i star­ted to get a little more excited as it dawned on me that this product may just exceed my expect­a­tions, so i grabbed my spoon and dug out a huge glob of this stuff. The sauce is quite firm and yel­lowy orange in col­our, peppered with red and green chilli pieces and also bits of onion, my nose lit up as i placed the spoon into my mouth and swirled the sauce round and round try­ing to ascer­tain the dif­fer­ent flavours.

Imme­di­ately the cheesy fla­vour hit me hard, like a ched­dar cheese train that was’nt stopping…but what was this??? The Habanero’s burned in my mouth like hot coals straight from the engine of this mighty cheese beast, and it was’nt about to let go! Reach­ing for a glass of milk i real­ised that i had def­in­itely under­es­tim­ated this stuff and that its burn was HUGE! With sweat pour­ing off my brow but no hic­cups to speak of, this was def­in­itely a sauce to be reckoned with!

I think this product would be more suited to the medium-insane range of peeps as it has an amaz­ing fla­vour but a huge punch of heat that you just don’t expect, it’s suit­able for alot of things, if you’re a bit of a wimp then mix this stuff with mayo at a 3:1 ratio for a real nice dip (thats 3 mayo to one Queso) to have with corn chips or the like, and if you wanna add a kick to your next lasagna or macar­oni cheese then chuck a table­spoon of this in with your cheese sauce to give it a nice fiery kick up the arse!

At only £4.99 for a huge 453G jar from www.scorchio.co.uk i think this is amaz­ing value for money as it has so many prac­tical uses in food and par­tic­u­larly party food, so go out and grab one as soon as Scorchio get more back in stock, in fact email them and pester them for it, it really is THAT good!

Till next time my chilli padawanz, may the sauce be with you, always!

Fla­vour	(9/10)
Heat	(7/10)
Pack­aging	(7/10)
Value	(7/10)
Over­all	(8/10)

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By Darth Naga, June 22, 2010 9:38 am

The Chilli Pep­per Com­pany — Naga Viper

Right people, its been a while since I reviewed one of Geds mas­ter­pieces, so here is such a review! I have known Ged from The Chilli Pep­per Com­pany (CPC) for a couple of years now, he was the man who intro­duced me to extract and offered me a taste of 7.3 mil­lion SHU to try, DAMN! that was hot! He does do some stu­pidly hot sauces such as his now infam­ous “10 Minute burn” and the sauce I have today is a hot one, but not to the same scale!

Ingredi­ents: Toma­toes, Fresh Naga Morich, Cider Vin­egar, Orange Juice, Chi­potle Chilli, Spices, Herbs, Cel­ery, Mustard.

(Review bottle sup­plied by Ged from www.thechilipeppercompany.co.uk)

“Naga Viper” comes in one of the CPC stand­ard bottles with one of Geds own prin­ted labels on that has a snazzy little pic­ture on, in this case the pic­ture is of a very venem­ous look­ing cobra, which has been put there to obvi­ously reflect the name, and of course refer­ring to the fact that the Naga is also known as “Nai mir­ris” in Sri lanka which lit­er­ally means “Cobra chilli” so the pic­ture on the label is very apt indeed!

The sauce inside is smooth and fre flow­ing without being watery or overly liquidy, this is PERFECT pour­ing con­sist­en­cey and I reckon it would do well to be poured over abso­lutely any­thing. Upon twist­ing off the cap I noticed it smells a little like super­mar­ket tomato ketchup and Naga’s! which is no bad thing as I think keth­cup freshly opened smells amaz­ing, i’m not a fan of the fla­vour of ketchup though, which is why I am glad this bad boy tasted dif­fer­ently to how it smells!

I poured a little out onto my fabled tast­ing spoon and then popped it into my mouth to swirl it round and get a feel for the fla­vour of it and I must say I was pleasently sur­prised! The fla­vour that hits almost imme­di­ately is a sweet naga/tomato fla­vour with under­tones of orange, as the fla­vour dis­sip­ates and the heat builds you are left with a beau­ti­ful smoki­ness which no doubt comes from the chi­potle thats present. I took another spoon­ful and I thinks its safe to say that the heat in this sauce while not appar­ent at first is cer­tainly a build­ing heat that grabs you a little more each time you dip in! By the third tea­spoon a slight film of sweat had formed on my brow and my mouth was ask­ing nicely if I would stop!

I would hon­estly recom­mend this to any­one, for the ardent nut­ters like myself this works as a great table sauce for gen­eral every­day use and for adding to any­thing, for the more new­bie chile heads this is a sauce that must be treated with respect and not just jumped into head first, you WILL get burned! So give it a try in soups and stews, and maybe add a dash to your next curry?

At a measly £5.50 a bottle from www.thechilipeppercompany.co.uk you can’t go far wrong with this sauce, its a good all rounder with a nice heat level and immense amounts of fla­vour to boot!!

Right I bet­ter go and grab a glass ‘o milk! Until next time chile­fanz, may the sauce be with you!!

Fla­vour	(8/10)
Heat	(6/10)
Pack­aging	(9/10)
Value	(8/10)
Over­all	(8/10)

Edit­ors Note:- Since Darth Naga Did this review the label has been redesigned, we have increased our pack­aging and over­all rat­ings to reflect this.

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By Darth Naga, June 19, 2010 2:27 pm

Okay…where do I start?? how about OMFGTHISSAUCEISSOBLOODYDAMNHOTITREALLYFOOKINGHURTS.…

Cajohn’s Mon­goose Hot Sauce

Okay now thats out of the way, lets crack on with the review. The sauce myself and Bin­bagz reviewed a couple of days ago is a hot one to say the least, but then thats not sur­pris­ing con­sid­er­ing who actu­ally makes it! Cajohn is a guy from Colum­bus, Ohio who star­ted out life as a Fire chief with the Colum­bus fire depart­ment, but after a while he real­ised that put­ting fires out was’nt his thing, and that he pre­ferred start­ing fires..in peoples mouths!

Ingredi­ents: Bhut Jolokia chiles, Fatalii chiles, Vin­egar, Nat­ural flavours.

(Review bottle kindly sup­plied by www.hot-headz.com)

“Mon­goose” is one hell of a sauce it has to be said, my exper­i­ences with Cajohn’s sauces have’nt been great to say the least but this sauce has truly con­ver­ted me! It all starts with this awe­some little black gift box, that has what looks like a mon­goose on the front com­ing out of the dark with a snake in its teeth, couple with the title this ser­i­ously looks like the cover of some hor­ror b-movie and the con­tents tell a pretty sim­ilar tale!

The bottle inside is much smal­ler than most sauce bottles as you can see from the video, it looks a little like a medi­cine bottle and at 59ml alot of people are gonne be think­ing “Hang on a minute, thats a bit crap for £8!” but fear not!, if I did’nt think it was worth buy­ing I would slate it as opposed to sing its praises, if theres one thing my read­ers know of me its that I am hon­est and fair in my reviews, and this is no different!

Take a look at the video below and i’ll see you on the other side!

SEE??? SEE THAT???!! when I said this sauce was insane I bloody well meant it! As myself and Bin­bagz have poin­ted out dur­ing the video, the extract fla­vour (Cajohn puts his extract under the head­ing “nat­ural fla­vours”, mainly because it is a nat­ural product!)is very well hid­den by both the Naga (YAY!) and the Fatalii chil­lis and as such this makes a very nice fla­voured sauce that lit­er­ally grabs you by the plums with its heat level and won’t let go unless you ask really, REALLY nicely!

My review bottle was sup­plied by Stu­art Mcal­lister of Hot Headz! and as such you can pur­chase this stuff right NOW over at www.hot-headz.com for £7.99 a bottle, which may seem pricey to some, but trust me, its worth every penny and this is a sauce that you won’t get through in a hurry, you only need to use a couple of drops in a meal for 2 or 4 and that will give it a crack­ing kick!

Until next time my chile Padawanz! use the sauce!!

Fla­vour	(7/10)
Heat	(11/10)
Pack­aging	(9/10)
Value	(4/10)
Over­all	(7/10)

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By Darth Naga, June 17, 2010 12:54 pm

South Devon Chilli Farm — Hot Habanero Sauce

Today I am mostly find­ing it dif­fi­cult to type up this review, due to the burn­ing sen­sa­tion that is plaguing my lips from todays review sauce, ITS A HOT ONE FOLKS…but then you knew that didn’t you? oth­er­wise why would I be review­ing it??!

The sauce I have in front of my comes from a UK com­pany known as the “South Devon Chilli Farm” or SDCF as I shall be call­ing them from now on! As you will prob­ably know, my pre­vi­ous review of an SDCF sauce wasn’t par­tic­u­larly favour­able as I believed the Jalapeno fla­vour just didn’t lend itself well to the cider vin­egar in the recipe, NOW this sauce also con­tains cider vin­egar, but does it suf­fer the same draw­back? read on and find out!

Ingredi­ents: Fresh Habanero Chil­lies (60%), Cider Vin­egar, Lemon Juice, Salt.

(Review bottle kindly sup­plied by www.southdevonchillifarm.co.uk)

“Hot Habanero Sauce” has lit­er­ally 4 ingredi­ents, thats it, no added c##p!  The bottle itself is a shade smal­ler than most other sauce bottles from other sup­pli­ers, and at 100ml theres a little less in the bottle also, but then SDCF don’t charge as much as other sup­pli­ers! The bottle itself has a very col­or­ful label with their sig­na­ture red chilli slap bang in the middle, coupled with the name of the sauce itself and at the top the SDCF logo in a lovely red and green! The sauce itself is a dark orange in col­our and very smooth, another one for pour­ing without being too runny!

I popped the lid and gave it the nasal nose­dive upon which I could imme­di­ately smell the fruity and attract­ive aroma of Habanero pods with a hint of the lemon juice also, I decided to not waste any more time and rather than pour­ing it out onto my tast­ing spoon I instead went for an intravenou…nahhh not really, but I did sup it straight from the bottle instead!

WOWOWOWOWOWOWOW ow..owwwwwww…OWWWWWW that was my ACTUAL reac­tion to this sauce, with this Habanero sauce SDCF have TOTALLY redeemed them­selves in my eyes, an amaz­ing fla­vour with a ser­i­ous heat kick that gives you a proper punch in the mouth after the fla­vour has died down, just so you know the sauce is still hav­ing its own wicked way with you! This stuff is like liquid habanero’s and you can’t taste the cider vin­egar, or maybe you can but it just goes so well with the habs that I can’t notice it like I did with the jalapeno sauce? Either way this a blind­ing sauce that really shouldn’t be missed, hence the reason its won two Gold Taste Awards in both 2005 AND 2007!

I would whole­heartedly recom­mend this sauce to any­one who is look­ing for a nice hot, habanero sauce that will not only put a smile on your face, but keep your wal­let happy as well because at a pocket pleas­ing £3.40 dir­ectly from www.SDCF.co.uk this is def­in­itely a sum­mer sauce that should have a spe­cial place at your next bar­be­cue, your mates will want this on their bur­gers and will prob­ably come back for more too!!

Right, time for this Pith­lord to get back to the dark side of the sauce, so until next time peeps, may the sauce be with you!

Fla­vour	(7/10)
Heat	(7/10)
Pack­aging	(8/10)
Value	(8/10)
Over­all	(8/10)