Hot sauce is worldwide, and the proof continues to roll in. Having just completed our own Fiery Foods Show and with another one crankin’ up to speed in NM, we bring you this story about one from the land Down Under out of http://www.theage.com.au:

Looking for some hot stuff? Jeff Megahan found it - and immense pain - at a fiery foods festival.

IT WAS A dare. Squirt a trail of brown liquid onto a tortilla chip and ease it into my mouth. The liquid, which looked and tasted like motor oil, instantly catapulted me into an other-worldly state of misery and regret. For an agonising 15 minutes, I stumbled dumbly in pain before uttering: “At is uh ‘ottest ‘auce I e’er ate.”

I was not alone. Throughout the day, this stunt was repeated countless times by the culinary skydivers at the Jindivick Hot Sauce and Fiery Foods Festival. Now in its eighth year, this remote paddock outside a little country town north of Warragul has become a mecca for Victoria’s hot sauce aficionados. They come to test their courage, their capacity for pain and the patience of their tolerant and bewildered partners.

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This quote was interesting about the chile pepper eating contest:

“Last year, the winner of the chilli-eating contest ate 12 chillies,” said the taunting host, prompting a teary-eyed contestant to wonder aloud: “Yeah, but where is he now?”

Hey, I made it back to the next year’s contest in my hometown. I guess the Aussie champ must have retired at the top of his game…LOL!

For those of you attending the Fiery Foods Show in Albuquerque, please keep an eye out for our intrepid reporter, Jon Passow, seen here in the above picture. That’s right…the Mullet is heading east to do the Fiery Foods Show in syle.

Besides getting to try a whole lot of hot sauces, salsas, and other spicy stuff, Jon will be on the lookout for breaking stories in the industry. From collectibles to new products to cool photo ops, Jon is your man of the weekend. We’re definitely hoping for some new “Caption This” pics to come out of this trip. Since we can’t make it to NM, we know that Jon will do some righteous representin’ in our stead.

Have fun, Jon! Send our best to all our friends in the industry while you’re there.

It’s MAMMOTH! It’s huge! It’s the next great hot sauce from the mad geniuses at CaJohns Fiery Foods.

Actually, Sauce 10 has been in existence for a short time already with a plain label. We’ve resisted the temptation to say something about it because we were waiting for the appearance of the new version with the Naga Jolokia pepper in it. Since the Jolokia (Naga, Bhut, whatever you choose to use as its first name) is the newest member of the elite super-hot peppers, it is only fitting that CaJohn be one of the first to incorporate it into a sauce. The part you should be asking is: why put it in a sauce that already had fataliis, red savina habs, and orange habs already? If you believe the SHU numbers being posted by the people testing the Jolokia, then this sauce ought to be one step shy of molten lava.

The bottle I received was label-less, so you can see the future print for it above. Through the glass bottle, the sauce looks no different from the outside than any other habanero sauce, but inside lay the path to tastebud burnout and ruin. Onward ho!

If you can’t read the ingredients list from the bottle label, here they are in regular print format:

Ingredients: Fatalii chiles, Red Savina habaneros, Orange habaneros, Onions, Distilled Vinegar, Mustard (vinegar, water, #1 Grade mustard seed, salt, turmeric, paprika, spices), Garlic, Naga Jolokia Powder, Black Pepper, Chile Caribe, Cayenne, A select blend of dehydrated vegetable powders

What a murderer’s row of peppers! The lineup of the 1929 New York Yankees could scarcely match the strength of this sauce….at least not in regards to its heat potential.
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I was truly excited to review a hot sauce that no one else has yet reviewed, and only a few have even tried. Talk about an exclusive! This is the type of thing that we really get into here at The Hot Zone Online.

First, some background on the Fatalli pepper, courtesy of the archives of The Chileman. Also spelled ‘fatalii,’ this pepper has its origins in Africa and is in the same family (capsicum chinense) as the habanero. Bright yellow when ripe, this pepper is both quite fruity and incredibly hot. Those who have tried it will tell you that it is every bit the rival to the habanero in terms of its place at the top of the chile pepper heat scale.

You’ll notice that this sauce is not bright yellow, and that’s due to its pairing with the chipotle. Chuck’s Smokey Chipotle hot sauce is an industry standard, being the first one of its kind to augment the chipotle, with its medium-hot, deep, smoky flavor, into an everyday hot sauce for your in-home usage. I’m not sure how such things are really quantified, but you would likely be hard-pressed to find a pair of such different tastes within the chile pepper world as these, which makes for the possibility of some interesting synergism with this mixture. Looking at the ingredients list, we find:

Ingredients: Chuck Evans‘ MONTEZUMA Brand Smokey Chipotle (R) Pepper Sauce, Capsicum Chinense (Fatalli: The Yellow Devil’s Tongue), Vinegar, Garlic

Pretty much as I mentioned above, plus a little vinegar and garlic. What I really didn’t know was how the percentages broke down of how much fatalli vs. how much chipotle was in this sauce. No better way to find out than to taste it, right?

First impression: First, I’d like to comment about the label graphics. There are a ton (perhaps way too many) out there on the market that are pretty shamelessly tacky & crude, often highlighting body parts & bodily functions. Those sauces are usually all about getting you to buy them for the tacky label. Hell, I own a few of them myself. This, however, is not one of those. Chuck was really going for a ‘burlesque‘ sorta look, and this label (along with others in the same line) does it pretty well. Suggestive without being obscene. Kudos to his graphic designer on making that work.

Moving onto the sauce itself, the aroma is a whole lotta fatalli. Wow, that’s some pungent stuff. If you have ever taken a good whiff of a fatalli sauce, then you know what I mean. It’s like the pepper invades your nose and takes up residence there! For its consistency, it was surprisingly thin and flows easily from the bottle. It’s thicker than most Louisiana-style sauces and the original Smokey Chipotle sauce, but not by much. You can see a dollop of it here on my plate:

No pepper bits or anything like that, but a pretty well-blended sauce that aims to lay siege to your tastebuds.

Taste: The taste pays homage to the smell, if only in the prominence of the fatalli pepper. The macho strength of the fatalli hits your palate like a ton of bricks both in heat and flavor. The onset of the heat, which eaten straight from the bottle, we’ll call about 8/10…and goes even higher the more you eat. However, the heat profile is different than the habanero as well. Habs usually hit me more towards the middle-to-back of my throat whereas the fatalli sauces hit me up front and then flow backwards like a pyroclastic lava flow. Despite presence of the chipotle, it’s not a prominent flavor to me…more like an undertone to the melody of the fatalli. What the chipotle does do is temper the heat of the fatalli a little, and that makes it a far more utilitarian sauce in that regard.

Where the flavor profile really changes is with food. It’s a good thing, really, since who amongst us just eats it straight from the bottle? A pleasant factoid about this sauce is there’s a secret on how to bring the flavor of the chipotle out from beneath the oppression of the fatalli. In/on foods with heavier sauces (e.g. alfredo and other creamy sauces), the dense fattiness of the sauce squishes the heat and lets you taste the unadulterated flavor of the fatalli and the chipotle as well. It seemed a little odd to me to pour it over cheesy noodles (not for you Mac-n-cheese fans, of course), but it just worked so well. In chili and stews/soups, this sauce also starred as well. It has been a daily staple of my lunchtime chili bowl this whole past week, and I’m beginning to wonder whether I’ll ever want to NOT use this with my chili. Unless you’re a glutton for heat, using it with many other foods is a hit-or-miss experiment with each meal. The sauce seems better mixed in with food than poured over it, but there are exceptions on both sides of the ledger where that doesn’t quite apply.

Overall recommendation: No matter how you slice it, though, fatalli lovers will adore this sauce’s taste. Chipotle lovers will want this sauce to be a bit more balanced towards their taste, but the end result is a very workable hot sauce that goes well in variety of dishes. Experimentation will be the key, as you’ll want to find the best combination and amounts to make the heat & flavor come out in your delicious repasts. Besides that, it’s a great looking bottle that will have people give it a second, or even third, look at the bottle before they even try it. A good sauce plus good packaging is a recipe for a great product, which I believe this will be.

Recently published in Chile Pepper Magazine as Rhode Island’s representative to the “From Sea to Shining Sea” coast-to-coast tour of hot sauces, we are proud to bring you some of the inside scoop on the brewing of hot sauce in the lair of Devil’s Own Sauces. We were introduced to Steve Kitchen & crew by picking up a bottle of their Devil’s Own Jerk Seasoning while at this past ZestFest. Suffice to say, it was a pretty amazing jerk sauce…and certainly one of the best ones we’ve tried that was NOT manufactured somewhere in the Caribbean. Our early impression of Devil’s Own led us to find out more about them & their products, which led us to Steve Kitchen…one of the gurus behind these creations. We asked Steve a few questions and then greedily began the task of tasting his yummy hot sauces. Here’s what Steve had to say….

One of our long-time faves also has something new that will be at the Fiery Foods Show. These products debuted at a SoCal food show, but will be premiering for the chilehead world in NM. Tom Pfleider sent us the skinny on their new line of salsas. Here it is:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Introducing AOC Ultimate Gourmet Salsas!

Yorba Linda, CA (January 1, 2007) - Pfleider Pfoods, the Southern California based gourmet chipotle products company, announced today that they will introduce their new ultimate gourmet salsas and bean dip in booth 861 at the San Francisco Fancy Foods Show.

“As with our award winning sauces, our goal was to create all natural and nutritionally clean products with amazing and distinctive flavors. Our unique ingredient combinations have accomplished this and these are a worthy addition to our growing line of gourmet chipotle products” company President Tom Pfleider stated.

The unique flavors, bold graphics and seductive names lure consumers to these extraordinary new products. Each formulation features the company’s gourmet chipotle paste and provides a pleasing heat that can be enjoyed by all ages, ethnicities & heat tolerances.

Pineapple Mojito Salsa is an amazing blend of pineapple, fresh mint and gourmet chipotle paste. This takeoff of the drink sensation is enormously complex and begs to venture beyond tortilla chips. It’s a perfect complement to fish, meats, poultry & other creative combinations. Mango Gingersnap Salsa makes a flavor statement with tropical mango, fresh ginger and gourmet chipotle paste… another unique offering with tremendous versatility.

Southwest Sunset Salsa sets a higher standard for black bean and corn salsas. This distinctive new offering has strong ties to the company’s Smokey Red Sensation sauce which won numerous national awards for excellence. Black Bean Fiesta also tempts consumers with the amazing taste of Smokey Red Sensation added to a tasty combination of black and pinto beans. These 12 oz jars are available immediately in 6 pack cases with a suggested retail range of $3.99 to $4.49.

Pfleider Pfoods, Inc provides gourmet chipotle products with a BOLD taste and Pleasing Heat that can be enjoyed by all ages, ethnicities and all heat tolerances. More product and company information is available at www.chipotlepeople.com.

Also, here is another article…this one from Gourmet Retailer Magazine. This gives you the clue that these are quality products and we can tell you that they taste absolutely WONDERFUL. We won’t be able to see Tom & crew in NM at the show, but tell ‘em we sent ya if you stop by! » Continue Reading

Finally, we can submit our report on this past edition of the North Market Fiery Foods Festival. Rather than go into all the details down to the nth degree, we’ll let the pictures tell the story. Be forewarned…this is a long post with lots of pictures. Also, at the end of this story is the video for the Chile Pepper Eating Contest. You can scroll to the bottom if you want to skip to that as well.

To start things out, it was a crappy weather day for a Fiery Foods Festival. Central Ohio had been deluged with a fair amount of snow already, and we were due to get a couple more inches during the morning. Above, you can see the view out our front porch in terms of how snowy it was. Getting down to the North Market was a little challenging, and we suspected that the inclement weather had a chance of keeping the attendance numbers down a little. Being the chileheads that we are, no amount of snow, sleet, or freezing rain was going to keep us from our day of spicy fun!
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Here’s a first look at CaJohn’s special new collectible that will be available at the NM Fiery Foods Show. This second edition of the Caveat Emptor looks every bit as good as the first.

We would like to thank everyone who left caption ideas for this picture! It made the original post for this far & way the most commented post in this blog’s history, and for that we are quite pleased. We will rank the top 5 captions, in reverse order:

5th - “You are what you eat” by Tracy from Cape Fear Pepper Co.
4th - “#1 on Mr Blackwell’s list for 2007″ by The Big Show
3rd - “CaJohn proving he can be the next Captain Kangaroo” by Sonia
2nd - “Agent 100,000 SHU reporting for duty. The name’s Head…Chile Head” by Jon Passow

and the grand prize winner:

“Yeah, that’s right, I’m Damn Sexy, and it’s Mr Cajohn if you’re Nasty” by Vic

Congrats to all the finalists and to Vic for the winning entry. We will do more of these as time goes by, so stay tuned in for that!

Everyone headed to NM for the Fiery Foods Show may want to stop by Chuck’s booth and check out his new line of stuff! Here’s the skinny about it:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Columbus, Ohio
February 21, 2007

Chuck Evans’ MONTEZUMA Brand announces the introduction of his Femme Fatalii “Sauce with Sass” at the March 2007 National Fiery Foods & BBQ Show in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Chuck’s Femme Fatalii line features seven sassy sauces:

BABY DOLL, the very first chipotle and fatalii hot sauce;
TABOO BBQ, a tantalizing chipotle and habanero barbecue sauce;
FORBIDDEN FRUIT, a hot habanero salsa;
GREEN with ENVY, a smokey chipotle salsa verde;
The WHIP, a flavorful 2 mil extract hot sauce;
MENAGE A TROIS, a smokey chipotle black bean and corn salsa;
and
OPPOSITES ATTRACT, a chipotle, lime & garlic salsa

Femme Fatalii’s suggestive and sassy New York Broadway styled labels will definitely “catch your attention” and are targeted for gift shops, hot shops, gourmet stores, and bachelor parties.

History Highlights:
Chuck Evans’ MONTEZUMA Brand is the sole surviving exhibitor who participated in the very 1st National Fiery Foods Show in 1988 and has been manufacturing since 1986. Mr. Evans is noted for introducing the chile chipotle to the mainstream United States market where he manufactured the very first chipotle pepper sauce, chipotle salsa, chipotle salsa verde, and chipotle barbecue sauce in the United States under the SMOKEY CHIPOTLE (R) trademark. Chuck co-authored THE HOT SAUCE BIBLE (1996) published by The Crossing Press and PEPPER PANTRY: CHIPOTLE (1997) published by Chronicle Books/Ten Speed Press. This past summer Chuck Evans was the guest commentator on the history of salsas and hot pepper sauces for the HISTORY CHANNEL’S AMERICAN EATS: CONDIMENTS segment.

We have the very first bottle of Baby Doll released for review, and we plan to publish that on this coming Monday. Joe is feverishly writing his thoughts, so stay tuned for it!!!

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