Blair's Hot Sauces - Part 2

So here we are in our countdown of Blair’s Hot Sauces and we are now entering the realm of really scorching hot with Blair’s Pure Death Hot Sauce. The simplicity of this fantastic chunky hot sauce is what makes its popularity. The bright orange colour comes from the fresh habanero pods used which are mixed with Naga Jolokia pepper, vinegar and Baked Hawaiian Red Salt which is something you don’t find in hot sauces every day! We see why Blair’s called it “Pure Death”. It is hot but clean and fresh, without the need for anything else but these four ingredients.

Blair’s After Death hot sauce is close to the Original Death one but with some pure pepper resin added to it so you still get the rich flavour that regular customers love but with a deep heat that will definitely make you sweat!

Blair’s Sudden Death Hot sauce is to be used as a food additive rather than on its own, you only need a few drops to make any stew or tomato sauce based dish come alive... literally! Made intriguingly with Siberian Ginseng and Clover Honey this complex and fiery hot sauce is a must have for any chilli head.

Blair’s Mega Death Hot Sauce is one of our bestsellers and it’s not difficult to see why. Blair’s call this hot sauce “The Attitude Adjustment”...need we say more? Before coming up with revenge scenarios about your mother-in-law or teenage kids though, just know that this sauce contains ingredients 500 times hotter than your average jalapeno chilli pepper... You have been warned!

And for the grand finale, Blair’s Hotter than Hot Hot Sauce, we present you: Blair’s Ultra Death Hot Sauce!! Just when you thought it couldn’t get any hotter Blair comes up with this Hot Sauce which is just for insatiable heat freaks as it contains ingredients 800 times hotter than your average jalapeno... To be used as a food additive only, this is definitely not the kind of sauce you should spread on your toast in the morning.

Blair's Hot Sauces - Part 1

Blair’s has got many followers in the world. Not only because the brand has been around since 1989 but also because its produce is just above most US and UK brands out there. We thought we would therefore give you an overview of its hot sauces going from mild to wild.

Blair’s Sweet Death Hot sauce is the mildest of the range but don’t be fooled, it’s still much hotter than your average Tabasco or supermarket-bought hot sauce. It is a delicious and complex sauce that keeps you guessing with its dense medium hot flavour.

Blair’s Jalapeno Death Hot Sauce with Tequila is famous because of its aspect and title but the flavour is what makes it truly memorable. Made with shallots, garlic, tomatoes, lime and the added bonus of blue agave tequila, all these flavours blend in wonderfully with the fresh jalapeno pepper to form a deliciously tangy sauce.

An incredible blend of scotch bonnet chilli pepper, mustard seeds, habanero powder, turmeric and just enough smokiness from chipotle chillies comes together in Blair’s Golden hot sauce which will make you weak in the knees from the first mouthful.

Getting a bit hotter now, Blair’s Original Death Hot Sauce is made with smoky chipotle, red habaneros and cayenne chillies, this great Original Blair’s everyday sauce packs a punch but is also full of flavour thanks to the added crushed garlic and key lime juice.

We can’t get enough of Blair’s Salsa de la Muerte. The smashed garlic, tantalising red and orange habaneros, coriander, fresh cayenne and hint of chipotle might seem a lot to take on at first but fear not, your tastebuds will thank you for it. With a good consistency and an all round heat that slowly builds in and lingers on, this hot sauce from Blair’s successful Death range is a great achievement.

Mystery Boxes on The Devil's Garden

At the Devil’s Garden we are always keen to expand in various areas, whether it is in bringing you the best of what the US and UK chilli markets have got to offer, having a website that is practical and appealing but also providing you with diverse opportunities to suit your chilli needs.

Christmas is fast approaching and in view of this we are keen to offer you the chance to order “Mystery Boxes”. For a set amount of money to suit your wallet The Devil’s Garden will send you or your friends a parcel of chilli goodies selected from our extensive range. We can either post it or deliver it personally if you are located in Lancaster or Morecambe.

Just imagine your friends’ faces when finding The Chilli Pepper Company’s 10 Minute Burn Hot Sauce for example, “Blair’s Sudden Death” or “Cambridge Chilli Farm Habanero Gold Jam”. Dartmoor Chilli Farm is always a great brand for chilli beginners while Chilli Pepper Pete is renowned for its hot stuff!

Everybody loves surprises so you can either trust us to select the products or you can narrow the selection down to “hot sauces only” or “chilli preserves” or “chilli chocolate” and also a level of intensity from “Mild” to “Medium” to “Wild”. We are tuning up the technical side of things but watch this space as it shouldn’t be long until we’ve got everything up and running.

The Chilli Pepper Company 10 Minute Burn Hot Sauce

You might wonder why we would dedicate a whole blog to just one hot sauce. Well the answer is simple: The Chilli Pepper Company 10 Minute Burn Hot Sauce is just awesome!!

Banned from three chilli shows since its creation and a massive hit at the West Dean Chilli Fiesta this year, 10 Minute Burn hot sauce is famous because of the “episodes” it brings on. When trying it at some chilli shows, a handful of people apparently rolled in the grass laughing uncontrollably, others had to sit down for half an hour to recover and some (like me) had their ears ringing for a good 10 minutes (which proves it’s worth its title!). Darth Naga had the same symptoms than the boss of the Devil’s Garden: the tears, the sweat and definitely the hiccups!!

What is great about this hot sauce though is that you get a good 5-6 seconds of intense fruity flavour, kind of like a boiled sweet really, taking over your whole mouth before getting hit by the pepper extract. It is a high worth experiencing but we definitely recommend sitting down first and lining your stomach with milk if you are definitely set on trying it as your insides will definitely go on a hell of a roller-coaster!

Jokes aside though, this is for hardcore chilli lovers and should only really be used as a food additive rather than a “let’s have a bit of fun” kind of hot sauce! We are quickly running out of stock already it’s that popular. Ged, the man behind the sauce is cooking us a new batch but in the meantime make sure to get your hands on a bottle before it’s all sold out!

The Chilli Pepper Company at the Holker Winter Market

At the Devil’s Garden, we are always keen to show our support to our various suppliers and thought it would be nice to say hello to Gerald, the man behind the Chilli Pepper Company, at the Holker Winter Market last weekend.

The weather was absolutely fantastic albeit a bit cold but it meant a lot of people went indoors, where Gerald’s stand was, in order to warm up. It was a rather compact winter market but full of Christmas anticipation and spirit. Gerald had set up shop in a prominent position and a lot of people were interested in what he had to sell.

He asked us to try some of his infamous Naga Viper, currently the hottest chilli in the world. We’re not going to pretend we ate a whole chilli pod, especially on a near empty stomach, and thought we would give you a more accurate description if we weren’t writhing on the floor calling for our mummy to come and make it all better.

Ged gave us a 5mm piece to try and we were bowled over by the flavour right away. It is definitely more Trinidad Scorpion in taste than Naga but the pungency is definitely coming from the latter! We weren’t keeling over but definitely realised why it had won its title!

Other goodies included a delicious dark chilli chocolate, some ginger & chilli fudge and of course his notorious Flaming Fireballs! As for the sauces and preserves, well most of them sold out, especially after all the chilli festivals this summer but fret not as Ged promised he would cook us more of everything, including his famous 10 minute burn hot sauce and the new Naga Viper hot sauce as soon as possible!

The Devil’s Garden – Going from strength to strength

Some of our customers are surprised at how young The Devil’s Garden is. We only started trading in January 2010 but we are already putting our stamp on the chilli world (or we’d at least like to think so!).

A lot of our customers have praised our efficient and friendly customer service. We are the first to be frustrated by online shops who send you products 3 days after you’ve ordered them or that never reply to you when you contact them. We usually answer queries within 24 hours and if we are able to catch the post we usually try and send products the same day they have been ordered.

At the Devil’s Garden we are keen to suit your individual needs so never hesitate to write to us at info@thedevilsgarden.co.uk if you are planning something special for your partner’s birthday for example or just want some advice on a hot sauce and even if you want to customise a package.

We now have more than 200 products for you to choose from on The Devil’s Garden website, ranging from hot sauces of course to chilli preserves, chilli chocolate, chilli mustards, condiments, dried chillies and ground chilli powder as well as chilli chutneys and so much more! We just cannot wait to add more products as we go along and are looking forward to getting more regular customers and as much feedback as possible.

We have so many ideas to make this website your one stop shop to anything spicy but these things take time so come and check on our progress in the coming months as there are a lot of exciting features in the pipeline!

Who Will Win?

There seems to be a real competition going on in the UK at the moment as to who will grow the world’s hottest chilli. A few years back everybody got amazed by the SHU (Scoville Heat Unit) of the Scotch Bonnet chilli pepper (up to 350,000) but now you hear every few weeks that a new record has been awarded.

Woody from Firefoods definitely made some noise at the start of the year with his Infinity Chilli rating at a whopping 1,176,182 SHU!! Before that Chilli Pepper Pete created a Naga that was 1,086,844 SHU so not too far behind.

Ged from The Chilli Pepper Company has just won the cup though with his Naga Viper chilli pepper (1,349,000 SHU) which is apparently “hot enough to strip paint”! Ged mentioned in the paper that his “chilli is even hotter than the Bhut Jolokia, which the Indian government has been looking at using in hand grenades”.

You might be tempted to think that it can’t get any hotter than that… well there is the Naga Hari that is currently being tested. Grower Jon Rose believes his eye-watering hybrid variety is more fiery than any other grown on the planet as it is a cross between two fearsome strains found in Northern India.

So I guess time will tell who has got a new world record on their hands but in the meantime, let’s all bow down to the awesome taste and pungency of these chillies and the great hot sauces and preserves that derive from them!

Blair's Success

Blair’s started in 1989 and hasn’t stopped growing ever since. Most people know Blair’s because of the famous “Death” range and trademark skull keyring that has allowed a sort of secret community of hot sauce lovers to form over the years all around the world.

At the Devil’s Garden we love Blair’s not only for its amazing hot sauces, crisps, spice shakers and much more but also because of its integrity. In view of Blair’s success in the US, the brand has had many tempting lucrative deals offered on a plate to mass produce and sell their most successful products to supermarkets. It just shows Blair’s honourable and feisty side that the brand didn’t sell out to corporate entities like so many other hot sauce producers have in the UK or the US.

We are proud to have all of Blair’s Death range hot sauces and people don’t seem to get enough of Blair’s Death Rain crisps! These are hard to get in the UK and we are soon getting some new stock but it’s not rare to get an order for a box of 28 at a time so if you want some, be quick!

If you haven’t tried Blair’s produce yet then make sure to get one of his awesome hot sauces or spice shakers that you can bring pretty much anywhere with you. We surely do!

The Health Benefits of Chillies

Chilli Peppers have been used for thousands of years not only for their spicy flavour but also for their medicinal values.

Many wonder why human beings would consume chillies at all. After all, the Capsaicin found in the chillies’ membrane provokes a burning sensation which can lead to severe discomfort, especially with the cross-breads that are currently being engineered like the Infinity Chilli, Naga Viper or the Naga Hari which are nearly as pungent as warfare chilli pepper spray (2,000,000 Scoville Heat Units).

But if we look closely at the beneficial side of chilli peppers, many features can help if not cure our everyday ailments. For example, levels of Vitamin C in chillies are seven times higher as compared to the level of Vitamin C found in oranges. Chillies are also packed with Vitamin A, B, C and E and are rich in minerals. The body releases Capsaicin-like substances when injured so Capsaicin from chilli peppers is currently used in topical ointments as well as a high-dose dermal patch to relieve pain or peripheral neuropathy. Capsaicin can also bring temporary relief of minor aches and pains of muscles and joints associated with arthritis, backache, strains and sprains.

Try one of these!!!

Three new products are now available at the Devil’s Garden, two hot sauces and a fiery Mexican cheesy sauce to die for!

Part of Hot Headz’ Naga Series, Hot Headz Naga & Chipotle Hot Sauce is just the best of both worlds. This hot sauce is just fantastic for those who love the smokiness of chipotles but also like it hot hot hot! For the price of one hot sauce you get two of the most loved chilli peppers out there! Use with caution though, it is extremely hot as is it mixed with a hint of pepper extract!

We love Blair’s Golden Death Hot Sauce and if ever there was a hot sauce to use on a daily basis as a condiment or mixed in with food it’s this one! Blair’s talent and passion for chillies truly show in this hot sauce. An incredible blend of scotch bonnet chilli pepper, mustard seeds, habanero powder, turmeric and just enough smokiness from chipotle chillies will make you weak in the knees from the first mouthful. The flavour of this hot sauce is just sublime and the heat is deeply enjoyable too, just enough warmth to make you aware of its potency but no vicious afterkick!

Chile Con Queso is a smooth creamy sauce made from a blend of melted cheeses, cream and chilli peppers and usually served warm to be eaten with Fajitas, Tacos, Enchiladas and Quesadillas. It is rather difficult to find a good one in the UK but Hot Headz is once more here to the rescue! Their own version uses the fiery and flavoursome Habanero chilli pepper and a hint of Jalapeno, also using a blend of spices that will make you salivate as soon as you open the large jar. You can now impress your friends by serving a large dish of nachos smothered with this great Chile Con Queso straight out of the oven!