"hotsauce" news and stories

Masochists and chile-heads have a British stockbroker to thank for unleashing Naga Snake Bite Sauce on the world. The fiery brew is made from what some claim is the world's hottest pepper. According to the sauce's creator, Mark McMullan, the naga morich chili clocks in at a breathtaking 1,598,227 Scoville Heat Units, beating out the bhut jolokia chili. In any case the dorset naga hasn't been certified by Guinness, while the bhut jolokia has.

The finer points of world records aside, one thing's for sure McMullan has created one blisteringly hot sauce. To give an idea, the dorset naga is 300 times hotter than a jalapeno. The pepper's name derives from the naga, a snakelike creature from Indian mythology. This may explain why the label claims the sauce is "Like drinking cobra venom." I don't think cobra venom is spicy, but it's certainly deadly.

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Nick Lindauer over at the Hot Sauce Blog recently posted a link to an interview with Belizean hot sauce maker Marie Sharp. Sharp was the original creator of Melinda's line, and she discusses, in detail, how she lost the name to her U.S. distributor. Sharp describes the origins of her hot sauce line, from growing peppers for local friends to eventually finding her products on the shelves of Wal-Mart. The interview was originally published in Belize Magazine, so many of the questions pertain to Sharp's relationship with her country-local fruit, animals and history. It's an interesting read for you hot sauce buffs.

Most habanero hot sauces are strictly one-note affairs. That note being an A sharp in the key of aaaargh. That's because they usually use habanero extracts and those that do use fresh peppers often don't include much else.

Years ago I tasted a habanero sauce that was quite different: Dirty Dick's Hot Pepper Sauce. Not because of the use of fresh habaneros but rather such ingredients as bananas and sultanas that lend the reddish brown sauce a tropical flavor. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the National Barbecue Association recently gave Dirty Dick's a first-place Award of Excellence in the Hot Sauce/Anything Goes category. The sauce's name begs the question of whether they meant to enter under Anything Goes or both!