The Caribbean’s Finest Scorching Sauce Comes from Belize

Beware. No Wimps Allowed. Belizean Warmth. These are the monikers that adorn a few of the hottest scorching sauces you’ll ever attempt. However they’re not the most popular. That might be Pink Hornet, a sauce so scorching even the official tasters on the manufacturing unit must take a breather to gather themselves. 

Right here at Marie Sharp’s manufacturing unit, they make what’s the finest scorching sauce within the Caribbean: a powerful vary of just about 20 totally different sauces that can wow — and typically terrify – your palate. 

However the Caribbean’s finest scorching sauce truly began by chance. It was the early Eighties, and Sharp was working as a secretary at a citrus farm; her husband inherited a 400-acre farm, and a neighborhood physician got here to her and requested her if she might plant some peppers for him. 

By no means one for wastage, she experimented with the additional peppers she had grown, conjuring up a carrot-based pepper sauce in her kitchen. The consequence was what would finally develop into Belize’s legendary sauce, with a 1981 founding date. 

The sauces get their differing intensities from totally different balances of “pepper mash” in every mix. 

The most well liked of them, Pink Hornet, is a mixture of conventional habanero pepper and a locally-grown scorpion pepper, a mixture that’s not for the faint of coronary heart — or tongue. 

They’re all marvelous, with a dynamic, daring taste and a warmth that, whatever the depth, is splendidly balanced. It’s really a knockout scorching sauce.

A tour of the manufacturing unit features a tasting of 32 totally different sorts of sauces, jams and chutneys: you’re handed a plate with a bag of crackers and a guidelines. It’s a culinary tour de power. 

Dee Dee, who leads the excursions, is a pleasant, enthusiastic spokesperson for the model. For her, the favourite is the huckleberry scorching sauce; after an extended evening out, the following morning would possibly require a few of the actually scorching stuff, she says. 

My favourite was the garlic habanero, and within the group tasting we participated within the mango was one other hit. 

The manufacturing unit additionally makes a spread of jams and chutneys — and really makes some somewhat attention-grabbing fruit-based wine. 

In all, about 100 folks from the area people work right here, with Sharp making an emphasis on hiring single moms. It’s one of many shining lights of the colourful group of Southern Belize, a spectacularly lovely nook of the nation tucked between the jungle and the ocean. 

“Something she doesn’t use for warm sauce, she turns into wine,” Dee Dee says, pointing to cashew, jackfruit and apple varieties. In any case, when your mouth is on fireplace, you want one thing to scrub it down. 

Whereas a go to to the manufacturing unit in Hope Creek is one of the simplest ways to expertise it, you’ll be able to truly discover Marie Sharp at retailers like Walmart and Amazon within the US. 

So what’s the key within the sauce?

“It doesn’t simply have warmth,” Dee Dee says. “It has numerous taste. Our secret is within the taste.”

Are you heading to southern Belize? One of the simplest ways is to fly to Belize Metropolis and drive, with the journey taking between and hour and a half and two hours. One of the best leaping off level is the city of Hopkins, about half an hour from the manufacturing unit, a stunning little seashore village with a bunch of seashore shacks, eateries and bars all set alongside the ocean. (You will discover good Belize choices right here at Google Flights).