I’m invested in this one. I’ve got some Jalapenos growing and hope I’ll be able to find a way to smoke them later in the year to make both Chipotle sauce and Chipotle chilli flakes. I’d love to find a great combination of flavours for my sauce.
I’ve picked up three sauces here, from South Devon Chilli Farm, Pembrokeshire Chilli Farm and from Brighton’s Burning Desire.
Immediately you can see how different these are. The Devon one is much lighter, much looser, and needs a healthy shake to even begin mixing ingredients together. When you open it you can smell onions immediately. In all honesty that’s just about all I taste - onions and vinegar with a little after-warmth. I’m not getting any of the smoky flavours you’d hope for from chipotles and no pepper flavours at all. I’m not sure about this one. The little bits of onion have a little crunch, which feels out of place - just a light crunch like the feel of desiccated coconut in your teeth. I almost wonder whether I got a dodgy bottle - the texture is inconsistent and not very attractive and the flavour is nothing like chipotle.
By contrast, the Pembrokeshire sauce is thick and smooth and darker. It’s also hotter and the flavour that comes through most surprisingly is the sweet bourbon and smokiness. That smoky whisky flavour is kind of classic, I guess, best known from those lovely Islay whiskies. But here the smokiness does not derive from drying barley over peat fires. It comes from a smoke flavour additive.
The Sussex sauce is a more complex recipe. The sauce itself is darker still - a rich, deep reddish-brown - thick and smooth again, and slightly hotter. I’m not sure what that front flavour is but the tomato is certainly prominent.
The Pembrokeshire and Sussex sauces are both nice enough but I don’t feel like I’ve found ‘the one’ yet and none of these quite feel like they’ve captured the spirit of the ingredient. I’m going to keep looking. Any recommendations welcome.
South Devon Chilli Farm - £4.95 for 140ml
Pembrokeshire Chilli Farm - £4.75 for 165g
Burning Desire - £6.00 for 148ml