Ahhh its Monday evening and I've done my work for the day now to sit down and do something I really enjoy, reviewing hotsauce!!
The sauce I have today comes from a friend of mine who runs the “Chilli Pepper Company” his name is Gerald Fowler and I am sure that those of you who have been to at least one chilli festival last year will have met the man himself, he's a larger than life guy who really loves the burn and everything associated with it, he's tried all his sauces himself even the fabled “10 minute burn” that was banned from the FFUK last year, so when I say this man knows his chilli's I'm putting it mildly!!
So here we are, I have a bottle of one of Ged's best selling sauces in my hand and am about to review it, “Naga Mama” is one of CPC's flagship sauces, when the Naga started to become popular the UK a few years back, Ged jumped straight on it along with a lot of other chilli sauce producers and set about to create an all natural sauce that used this amazing chilli as a base for some wonderfully hot but tasty sauce and as a result “Naga Mama” was born. As always with the the label on this 140ml bottle is full colour and glossy, it has an interesting picture of a crest with a chilli on and a crown above that, all in lovely orange and black as you can see from the photo, I suspect Gerald had this one specially drawn up for this sauce!
The sauce itself is a nice bright orange with flecks of white here and there in the form of seeds, but the texture is very smooth and not lumpy at all, which makes for a good pouring sauce! Upon opening the bottle I noted a very sweet and tomatoey smell coming from the neck which I can only put down to the use of sweet fruits in the sauce, but perhaps they are used merely to take the slightly bitter edge off the Naga? (which I find is sometimes a problem for Naga based sauces, the bitterness overwhelming the final product)
I poured some out onto my spoon and gave it my usual sniff before placing the spoon on my tongue and doing my best to ascertain the flavours present. Surprisingly, considering its sweet smell this was quite a savoury sauce and was abundant with both tomato and Naga pepper flavours and I have a feeling my initial judgement was correct and that the fruits had been used in this sauce to counteract the slight bitter taste that can sometimes be associated with the Naga pepper!
Again CPC has produced a fine Naga based sauce with a flavour that is unlike any of the other sauces they produce, its both slightly sweet and very savoury at the same time which makes this an excellent sauce for both pouring onto food and placing into everyday meals to spice things up a bit!!
And while this isn't the hottest completely natural Naga based hotsauce on the market it still has a place among the best tasting ones, coupling a strong tomato base with the complexity of two different Naga's makes for a very interesting sauce indeed!
Until next time my chile padawanz! may the sauce be with you, always!
