Winston’s-Gourmet Jamaican Hot Pepper Sauce (Hot and Mild)
“We sell flavor”
Bottle Description: Created up in the mountains of St. Mary’s Parish, Jamaica. Look no further, you’ve found it. The sauce that makes every dish taste special!
Ingredients: Mangoes, honey, tomatoes, apple cider vinegar, red and yellow bell peppers, peanut oil, habanero peppers, spices, onion powder, sea alt, chili powser, cayenne pepper, dill weed, tamarind.
Container: I like this label a lot. National colors and a flame spewing lion? Cool. Great example of a sauce that doesn’t need to brag about heat. Did I mention the lion spewing flames?
Appearance: Darker brown sauce with seeds and brown flecks of what I believe is pepper skins.
Smell: The mangoes are very noticeable and the sauce has a primarily fruity aroma. There’s no common vinegar smell or even much of a chili pepper smell. Very sweet and fruity.
Taste: This is where things get interesting. Winston’s Gourmet Jamaican Hot Pepper Sauce is unlike any sauce I’ve ever tried. At first I was taken aback by the use of such a strange mix of flavors because it didn’t suit my usual hot sauce palate. Upon further tastings I discovered that the use of honey, mango and tomatoes in addition to apple cider vinegar, peppers and a slew of spices gives this sauce a very complex taste. The sauce starts with a sweet mango island flavor and proceeds to a biting peppery flavor and ends with a large kick of spices.
Heat: (7.0/10) It has a kick but nothing that will knock out your tongue.
Field Test: I can recommend that this sauce go on pretty much everything but it works well of foods that do not contain lots of salt. You should be applying this sauce to rather neutral tasting foods. I’ve had 3 great meals where I have dumped this sauce of salmon and have almost finished the bottle. Think of this sauce in terms of the cranberry sauce you use during Thanksgiving, if you can use cranberry sauce on it definitely apply this stuff.
Final Word: Get this sauce. It is a must have in terms of a fruit based sauce. The best I’ve tasted in its genre.
Overall: 9.6/10.
In 1998, we were awarded the People’s Choice Award for the best tasting hot sauce from the Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival. In the August 27, 2004 edition of the Austin Chronicle, we were interviewed before the festival due to our outstanding product and history of multiple awards in the commercial bottle category of the festival. Now, we’d like to introduce ourselves to you with excerpts from that article.
The story of Winston’s Hot Pepper Sauce is a familiar one. Although they both were born and raised in Jamaica, Winston Thorpe and Orville Failey Sr. met in Austin .Thorpe was, and still is, the caterer for all Jamaican bands that play at Flamingo Cantina Night Club in Austin, TX. His hot sauce comes from a recipe given to him by his grandmother back in St. Mary’s Parish in Jamaica and was a hit with everyone who tried it. Thorpe approached his friend Orville to join forces and start up a business bottling the sauce. they first entered the Chronicle Hot Sauce Contest, where they won first prize in the People’s Choice Award In 1998.with Orville at the helm as CEO and manager, Thorpe set out to bottle and sell his sauce in stores confident that the people of Austin had approved of his creation.
The sauce is indeed delicious, a flavor bomb made of mangos and Chile habanero, spiced with thyme and a hint of ginger. Although it is hot, it is designed “to enhance the flavor of foods, not to take it away,” Failey explains. It is made of all natural ingredients.
The Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival has had a great impact on Winston’s products. “When we do the Hot Sauce Festival, we are putting a face to the product,” Failey says. “We are proud to be a local product while bringing a Jamaican flavor to the festival. It is a great festival, a cross-cultural experience that helps bring together the different faces of Texas.” The sauce has also garnered awards at the Houston Hot Sauce Festival for three consecutive years, as well as at the Texas Fiery Foods Show. They have participated in the Chronicle’s Hot Sauce Festival every year since 1998, often placing in the top three for the People’s Choice Award. “We are trying to override people’s idea of what a hot sauce should taste like,” Failey says. “We try to re-educate them. They are used to something plain, like the average pepper, vinegar, and water sauces. Our customers call it ‘liquid spice’ because it tastes so good. We make a product that makes people go ‘wow.
This sauce is not only a great table sauce, but it is excellent for cooking, too. They receive e-mails from many happy customers to tell them the many ways in which they use it. Some mix it with ketchup or mustard to dress hot dogs and burgers, add it to barbecue sauces and marinades, and use it right out of the bottle on pizza. I think it’s incredible on pork, especially if it’s barbecued or smoked, and it is also great on seafood. In the case of Winston’s Hot Pepper Sauce, “We sell flavor” is more than just a motto.
““ Claudia Alarcón, Austin Chronicle
