For far too long, the idea of hot sauce in Australia didn’t go much further than Tabasco or Sriracha. Or just a pile of chili. While both are sound additions to a meal, and some extra chili always goes down a treat, those of us who have travelled to the American south know that hot sauce can be a lot more than any of these options. They can be sweet, they can be smokey, they can be full of flavour and the variety is mind blowing. Just head into any BBQ joint in Tennessee or Texas and you’ll be greeted with often dozens of hot sauces to choose from. It’s hard to know what to do – so usually you pour yourself a little bit of each of them and enjoy the experience.
Thankfully, at least one Australian company has received the memo on what hotsauce should be – more than just “heat”, but full of flavour as well. In that we were excited to receive a parcel of Handsome Devils Co. Quality Hotsauce, whose range of four hotsauces are some of the best “made in Australia” hotsauces I’ve ever tasted.
Ranging in colour and intensity, the sauces come in four variations: Verde, Savina, De Arbol and Chipotle. Each deliver different kicks, and some are hotter than you’d expect. Sometimes this unnecessarily overpowers the flavour, but each have grown on me nicely. Some are perfect for eggs (De Arbol and Savina have both been excellent additions to my breakfast – and yes, that’s a thing, and if you haven’t done it before, add some of this to your scrambled eggs and thank me later), others for tacos (Chipotle and Verde both do the trick), but those of us who travel to the Americas know: good hotsauce can be put on just about everything. And these come as close to the mark as you’re going to find in Australia.
The sauces come in 250mL bottles and will run you $12 a bottle. For more details head to: http://www.handsomedevilsco.com/hot-sauce/
