Meet Your Maker #7 (with reviews) – Hotternell – aka Muso

Ever wonder what the Blair reserve in your collection tastes like? How hot it really is. Well you can thank Mike Laprade for solving that dilemma. You see, he has carved out quite a niche in the extract market over the last while. You can find him at his website www.hotternell.com or always on eBay. He sells his extracts from 1 Million scoville units up to 5+ Million scovilles in various sizes and prices. If you need hotter than that then well……….buy his pure extract crystals. He sent me a sample of his 5+ Million which was I excited yet reluctant to try.

The hottest I have had prior has been Da Bomb Final Answer (1.5 Million) and one of Muso’s extract I purchased from ebay about a year ago (not sure of the heat rating but it was damn hot). I asked Nick for some advice prior to trying it, but I threw the advice he gave me out the 24^th floor window and decided to apply it directly to my tongue. If I could I would have jumped after that advice. Nick said it would be like a tongue piercing. No stranger to piercings myself I can completely agree. I am writing this 10 minutes after I have tried it and it feels like a dull rusty drill is boring through my tongue. The taste isn’t bad per say…….just damn freaking hot.

I am doing this Meet Your Maker in two parts. One as an introduction to Hotternhell and second to review the sauces he had sent me. Now usually I can expect a new habanero [tag]hot sauce[/tag], new BBQ sauce, new marinade, but what I received was totally different than anything I have tried before in the hot sauce realm.

HSB – Hot sauce is already a niche market. You have zeroed in on the extreme specialty of producing extract. How did that come about?
I’ve been producing my own sauces for quite some time now, mainly for family and friends. I don’t know if you’d call them recipients of my delectable sauces or guinea pigs for my latest concoctions. My sauces could only get as hot as the ingredients in them and I found that it wasn’t hot enough. After awhile you get bored with pure habanero. I was selling some of my products online and on eBay, and found that many people were looking to make their own sauces at home. I offered kits with everything needed, including bottles, lids, splash caps, labels (ready to be printed on your own printer), spices, mash, recipes, and everything needed to bottle your own dozen hot sauces. People really like the kits.

HSB – What is your set-up like to create the extract?
Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t make it here any longer. The process is too involved, and too expensive to create extracts at the strength these are. I have them made for me in a Laboratory environment, to the extreme levels of purity that these are. I have a family here and when I dig my sauces out, they scatter. It’s a lot cheaper and easier to have someone else make it for me. These are exceptionally clean products with no residuals. They are pharmaceutical grade, which is much purer than food grade.

HSB – Any accidents or mishaps while making a batch?
No accidents, but many, many mishaps…. Like not washing my hands well enough after playing with the extracts. We’ll leave it at that. Use your imagination.

HSB – Being local (to me) how do you see the Hot Sauce scene in Canada now and in 5 years?
The Hot Sauce scene here in Canada is picking up. A few years ago all we had was that excuse for a sauce out of Louisiana. It should be called flavoured vinegar, not hot sauce. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll use it in a pinch, but it’s not gourmet hot sauce. There are a few gourmet sauce companies here in Canada that are going to rock the scene very soon.

HSB – You have mentioned that unfortunately you had a heart attack last year. Did the extract have anything to do with it?
Not a thing to do with it! I’ve been in perfect health all my life, being a full time martial artist, teaching kids out of my school in Brampton Ontario, until recently. My heart attacks had everything to do with putting too much on my plate at once and thinking I was invulnerable. I used to teach stress management. It snuck up and bit me in the ass. I was running like a high performance race car redlined a little too long Luckily I am with a partner that is behind me 1000%. She has helped me through my tough times and encouraged my hot sauce adventures. One of my mildest sauces was her inspiration. The Tropical Ginger line that I have was made with her.

HSB – On your site you mention making a capsaicin tea. I have tried this myself and now use it as a cold remedy when I feel the onset of one coming. What other useful advice do you have for people who purchase your extract.
Extract is a wonderful thing if used properly. There are tons of claimed medical benefits. We all know about the endorphin high, but also it increases circulation, reduces pain, prevents ulcers, helps psoriasis, and recently discovered, prevents prostate cancer. I use it everyday, just because. 🙂 I like it in my soup.

HSB – You create some of your own hot sauce. Do you personally eat it?
Yes, I eat all my own sauces. If I didn’t I wouldn’t make them. Oh, with the exception of Con Diablo. I made it for the people that wanted a ridiculously hot sauce. I put out the extracts so you can take your own favourite sauce and make it a superhot. The extracts don’t affect the taste that much. I make my sauces for me; I just hope everyone else likes them as much as I do.

HSB – What is your favourite sauce that you do not make?
What day is it? It changes on a daily basis. I currently have about 60 different hot sauces open in my fridge and maybe a dozen or so on my table. I put Red Savina Mash on just about everything. Some sauces I get a hard-core craving for. One that I keep dreaming about is Peppermaster’s Jerk Curry. I have one that’s close, but theirs is untouchable. It’s very unique.
I should take this opportunity to thank Greg and Tina for helping me at a rough time in my life. They inspired me to push forward after my heart attacks. It’s hard to break into an established market. Peppermaster shows it can be done. It’s hard to be a market leader when everyone else has done it. I’m looking for a little different way of approaching an established market. Blair is the King of Superhots. He is more than well established. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, well, I don’t want to imitate, but chisel out my own niche in the market.

HSB – Outside of creating hot products, what else keeps you occupied or out of trouble?
Ummm, I don’t stay out of trouble. Life would be boring. LOL! I have a few things under my hat that are coming up. We’ll have to wait and see what happens. Other than Hot Sauces, martial arts and custom cabinetry take up my time when I’m not with my family. I’m also in a course right now to further my trade knowledge.

HSB – How much extract do you produce at a time?
None any more. I search the world for producers that will meet my standards. I’d love to have my own multi-million dollar mass production facility, with acres of peppers growing; but until then, I’ll have to import my raw products from others. I put them all together in ways no one else does.

Chocolate
This was really weird. Look at the ingredients first: Swiss Dark Chocolate, Cream, Sugar, Vanilla, Peppermint extract, Grand Marnier Liqueur, Red Savina Habaneros, Spices.

Now you can see why. It screws with your head. Its hot and minty cool. But the brain seems to focus on the minty before the heat. I keep trying this over and over again. What I would like to try this in is a hot chocolate with Baileys (or name your liqueur). I can also see this over ice cream and cheesecake. The consistency out of the fridge is thick…….very thick. Just like chocolate sauce. It may be a SAS (specific application sauce) but it is damn good.

Packaging – 7/10
Aroma – 10/10
Appearance – 10//10
Taste – 8/10
Heat – 9/10
Overall – 9/10

Breeze
This is where I get honest. There are a few things I don’t like. First and foremost I HATE eggs. Hate them, hate them, hate them. Next up is bananas. Take a look at the ingredients list: Banana, Mango, Kiwi, Coconut, Lime, Lemon, Vinegars, Apples, Ginger, Red Savina Habaneros, Salt, Spices.

So for the sake of my HSB readers I took one for the team. And lo and behold I survived. And you know what it wasn’t bad. It won’t exactly be on my first to grab out of the fridge list but it was good. For those of you who like the sweeter, fruitier type sauce I would recommend this. The colour of this sauce is a pleasant pale yellow and the consistency again is like a thick syrup. Definitely another SAS but the chili-head out there can enjoy a desert in their own element.

Packaging – 7/10
Aroma – 8/10
Appearance – 8/10
Taste – 7/10
Heat- -6/10
Overall – 7/10

Blueberry
Ingredients: Red Savina Habanero Peppers, Blueberries, Sugar, Lemon, Lime, Starch, Guar Gum, Spices.
Ya, Blueberry hot sauce. Another mind messer. This one didn’t work for me. It smells of Blueberry’s and Red Savina’s. I tried to like but I just couldn’t. The colour of this sauce is really nice. Like fresh blueberries. It is much runnier than the others. Like I said I tried to like it. Perhaps those of you who like sweet and really hot may appreciate this more than I do.

Packaging – 7/10
Aroma – 5/10
Appearance – 9//10
Taste – 4/10
Heat – 7/10
Overall – 5/10

Hurricane
Ingredients: Banana, Mango, Kiwi, Coconut, Lime, Lemons, Vinegars, Apples Ginger, Red Savina Habaneros, Salt, Spices, Capsicum Oleoresin
Like the “Breeze” but hotter. There really isn’t much difference.

Packaging – 7/10
Aroma – 7.5/10
Appearance – 8//10
Taste – 6/10
Heat – 9/10
Overall – 7/10

Con Diablo
Ingredients: Red Savina Habaneros, Vinegar, Capsicum, Oleoresin.
Here we go. This one is getting into waiver territory. I was warned by Mike to be careful before trying this. But I had this and the 5 Million + in front of me I thought that this couldn’t be that hot (in comparison). What followed next was 20 minutes of tongue burning terror. Like a rabid pit-bull clamped onto the end of my mouth. And yet there was a pleasant taste behind it. Novices, stay clear of this. Masochists…..enjoy! Its dark red, it runny, it is just freaking dangerous.

Packaging – 7/10
Aroma – 7/10 (be careful if you want to inhale this)
Appearance – 8/10
Taste – 8/10
Heat – 10+++/10 (I think I can safely say this is in the 1 Million+ range.)
Overall – 8/10

5 Million +
Not much to mention here. I just enjoy having this in my collection. I no longer have to wonder how hot that reserve or other collectible is. The price alone is worth the curiosity.

In conclusion I have to say the Mike Laprade has the run the gamut of extreme sauces. Whether it be extreme for it’s uniqueness or extreme for the heat. Either way he has something here for you. Well worth checking out if you are into trying something new.

Hotternhell
www.hotternhell.com