It’s not often that we get a request to review some hot sauce from across the ocean in England, so the email we got from Nick & Zoe at Fire Foods (UK) definitely got our attention. Chile peppers are taking the world by storm, and those in the British Isles are no exception to this invasion. This sauce, the Woody’s Extreme Sauce, arrived in a simple brown padded envelope several days ago, and I’ve been working it into as much of my meals as possible trying to appreciate its flavor and uses. Always conscious of a sauce’s composition, I noticed the list of ingredients which said:

Ingredients: fruit juice, carrot, chilli (18.5%), vinegar, mustard, black treacle

Now, fruit juice and carrot being the first two ingredients on the list didn’t strike me as an extreme sauce…but it all depends on your tolerance, of course. The “chilli” is apparently a scotch bonnet pepper, and noteworthy is the addition of mustard since it can be a strong taste that some people either really like or really dislike. Then there’s the black treacle. What the heck was black treacle? Was it pine tar? An exotic mushroom? As it turns out, the answer surprised me a little. Consulting the appropriate Recipes4us.co.uk website, they say this about black treacle:

Strictly speaking, Treacle is the British generic name for any syrup made during the refining of sugar cane. Therefore, theoretically, Treacle, Black Treacle, Molasses, Golden Syrup and Blackstrap are all treacles.

Black Treacle, (equivalent = dark molasses) is made from the syrup obtained from later boilings and is about 55% sucrose.

The origin of treacles are pretty interesting, so I encourage you to check out the above website and read about it. For this hot sauce, I wondered what the addition of black treacle would do for both the taste and the consistency since treacle/molasses is not a common component of many hot sauces on this side of “the pond.” First, though, I wanted to hear from the folks behind the sauce to get them to tell me a little about themselves and their creation. I spoke with Woody (who I think is Nick unles he tells me otherwise), and here’s what he had to say:

Tell us a little bit about your introduction to chile peppers and what the path has been like from being aficionado and then a maker of hot sauce.

I entered the world of chillis about 18 months ago, a friend at work gave me six plants and i was hooked, within 6 months I had a polytunnel in my back yard and planning “fire foods”

Where did your recipes come from, and how has the creative process been for you with them?

My recipes have been played around with for many months. I belong to the “chillis galore forum” and together with a few members we had a chilli tasting session at my house, in which I took all the best ideas and rolled them into one! I am currently doing local markets and the demand is very high, so I am looking in the future to making sauces full time.

Before making your own sauces, where did you get your hot “fix”? Other sauces, kinds of food, etc.

Before chilis I used to go for a curry quite a lot and always had a medium syle meal. Now I can eat the hottest no problem, so I think my taste buds have been killed!! Whilst on holiday last year I went to the home of the dorset naga “peppers by post.” I bought a plant and my love of super hot chilis was born, so I now plan to cross the naga with a bell pepper to create the perfect sauce pepper.

Say someone who hadn’t tried your sauce before was interested in trying it, so tell us what you’d say to sell them on your stuff.

If somebody wanted to buy one of my sauces but was a little unsure…I would say if you like superb flavour with heat buy one, as we only use the freshest ingredients. I have tasted many sauces and i believe mine are up there with the best.

In the coming months I will be bringing out signed limited edition bhut jolokia sauces along the same line of my extreme. I will be selling 2 bottles, one to enjoy and one to keep. I will sign each bottle and the run will be 499 bottles….prices to follow.

My future aim is to be known in a similar breath as Blair (of Extremefood.com), and one of the top UK sauce makers. I hope to see Fire Foods to grow and become a well known chilli site and most of all to enjoy what I do.

Well, on to the sauce itself! As is my usual deal, I doled out a portion to get a closer look:

As you can see, it’s a beautiful aromatic red sauce with many a pepper seed floating within the mix. Even if I didn’t know exactly that there was Scotch Bonnet pepper used in this sauce, the fragrant aroma of the chinense would have had me guess at something related to a habanero. While mostly chile pepper, you can definitely detect the scent of the mustard also. The consistency is fantastic…slightly thinner than that of catsup, although the seeds in the mix do make it a little more likely to come out of the bottle in clumps. Not much in the way of separation, even with prolonged periods of standing as well.

Taste: My first impression upon tasting this was, “Wow, this tastes so fresh!” This sauce manages to highlight the great taste of the peppers without too much bite from the vinegar. It’s a simple yet effective sauce that’s not too complex in taste, making it a lot easier to pair with foods. Again, I also was able to taste the mustard, but without much influence from the fruit juice or treacle. For the kinetics of taste, the treacle must have added a smoothness to the sauce that other hot sauces should envy. Providing some thickness and viscosity without the sugary taste of syrup is no small feat, and I’d like to see more sauces emulate this…by whatever ingredients work for it. The heat is formidable but not overwhelming, and I’d rate it as about 8/10 with some definite heat buildup with more usage.

Matching this sauce up with food was delightfully easy, because I failed to find many foods that this sauce failed to enhance. Whether I used it poured on, dipped into, or mixed into foods, this sauce provided a great combination of heat and flavor. My almost-daily bowl of lunchtime chili was a great cup o’ red with this sauce, as was any of the other soups & stews I mixed it into. I used it both poured onto sandwiches as a condiment, as a dipping sauce for a variety of foods, as a spicy steak sauce, and even as spicy addition to my salad dressing. With each, the sauce performed as well as I had hoped, although mustard-haters are likely to not dig how that flavor hangs around. That said, I’ve been plowing through the bottle at an enormous rate. That, plus I was able to share this sauce with a half-dozen or so people at work. Those who have tried not only said they liked it, but also asked to use it again for another meal or food. That itself speaks volumes for its appeal.

Overall recommendation: This hot sauce import from the UK is something worth checking out. Spicy hot and full of flavor, it is has enough utility to find use in a wide variety of anything you might eat. Even if you don’t like mustard or don’t want to know what black treacle is, this sauce may surprise you in its quality. I think that an even hotter version of this sauce is possible as well, and there’s certainly an audience for that as well. I really liked this sauce a great deal, and you may as well. Consider getting a bottle of your own and trying it. Enjoy!