How I Match the Heat to the Person at Christmas

I will tell you a secret about hot sauce gifts. When one goes wrong, it is almost never the sauce. It is the heat.

Somebody hears that a friend likes spicy food, buys the fiercest bottle they can find, and it gets one brave spoonful on Boxing Day. Then it moves to the back of the fridge door and stays there until spring.

A good hot sauce gift set is chosen the way you cook for someone. You think about what they like to eat, how much fire they really enjoy, and what they will do with the jar on a wet Tuesday in January.

Back home in Guadeloupe, the Christmas table always has a sauce on it for the people who want heat, and there is always somebody who does not. I have written about how our December actually runs if you want the whole picture. That table taught me the one rule of giving chilli: match the heat to the person, not to the label on the box.

So here is my honest guide, sauce by sauce and set by set.

Start with the person, not the jar

Good spicy food gifts start with a little thinking. Before you choose anything, answer three questions about the person you are buying for.

How do they eat chilli now? Somebody who orders the hottest curry on the menu needs a different present from somebody who picks the jalapeños off a pizza.

Do they cook, or do they pour? A cook uses a sauce as a marinade, a glaze or the start of a stew. A pourer wants something for the table, to go straight on eggs and chips.

Is there anything they avoid? Alcohol, or an allergen. I come back to both further down, because they matter more than the heat.

My six sauces, sorted by heat

I make six sauces, and between them they run from no chilli at all to scotch bonnet. Here they are in three groups, gentlest first.

No heat, or only a gentle one

Fresh Herbal Sauce. No heat at all. Shallots, basil and coriander, sharpened with white wine vinegar. This is the jar for the person who tells you they do not like spicy food. Lovely on fish, on steak, or stirred through pasta.

BBQ Sauce. I call this one the sweet one. Tomato, brown sugar, garlic and a dash of rum, thick enough to turn sticky on a tray of wings. There is no chilli in it, only a soft warmth at the end.

A little warmth

Exotic Caribbean Sauce. Passion fruit and onion with a little chilli. The fruit comes first, then a light kick that never takes over. It is the sauce I glaze my Christmas ham with.

Caribbean Sauce Creole. Onion, green chilli and white pepper, the savoury taste of Sunday cooking in Guadeloupe. Its warmth sits in the background. The jar for somebody who likes a little heat but still wants to taste their dinner.

Real heat

Flaming BBQ Sauce. The same smoky depth as my BBQ Sauce, with chilli in it this time, and the spice builds fast. For the person who lights the barbecue in any weather and wants the ribs to fight back.

Caribbean Hot Sauce. Scotch bonnet is the first ingredient, about 40 percent of the jar, with onion and garlic behind it. It tastes of fruit before it tastes of fire, then it climbs slowly and stays with you. I wrote a whole piece on the scotch bonnet if you want to know why it matters so much to us.

Which hot sauce gift set for which person

For the curious cook: The Complete Feast

The Complete Feast is all six sauces in one set, £29.99, from the herbal to the scotch bonnet. Give it to the person who cooks for everybody, who will try the Créole in a stew on Sunday and the BBQ on sausages on Monday.

It is also the safe choice when you do not know how much heat they like, because every setting on the dial is in the box.

For the heat lover: The Spicy Duo

The Spicy Duo is my two hottest sauces, both full size, for £9.98: Caribbean Hot Sauce in its 180g jar and Flaming BBQ in its 250ml bottle. One for the table, one for the grill.

Of all my gifts for hot sauce lovers, this is the one I would want to open myself.

Stocking fillers for foodies: the Discovery sets

The Discovery sets are my sauces in small 45g jars. Same recipes, same flavour, just smaller, so they slip into a stocking and let somebody taste before they commit to a full jar.

• Discovery Trio, Spicy, £4.99: Caribbean Hot Sauce, Flaming BBQ and Sauce Créole. For the stocking of somebody who likes it hot.
• Discovery Quartet, Fruity & Herbs, £5.99: Herbal, Exotic, Sauce Créole and BBQ. Nothing fierce in it, for somebody who is careful with chilli but loves flavour.

For Secret Santa: one jar

A single sauce, chosen with the guide above, is a proper present, and every one of my jars and bottles costs under six pounds. Add a recipe card and it becomes something more.

Hot sauce gift ideas: what to put with the jar

A sauce on its own is a nice present. A sauce with the right thing beside it is one they remember.

A recipe card in your handwriting. My favourite, and it costs nothing. Pick a recipe that uses a sauce in the box and write it out. My recipes name the sauce they use, so matching is easy. With Caribbean Hot Sauce, write out my jerk chicken. With the Flaming BBQ, the sticky wings. If they are hosting this year, put a jar of Exotic Caribbean Sauce with my cranberry sauce or my baked camembert. Both use it, and they will cook them that same week.

A good knife or a heavy chopping board. For the cook who has everything except a properly sharp knife.

A Caribbean cookbook. Any good one. Tuck a sauce in with it and mark the page where it belongs.

A jar of homemade hot honey. The best thing you can make in five minutes. More on that next.

A gift you make yourself: hot honey jars

If you want to give something homemade, make hot honey. It is runny honey warmed very gently with Caribbean Hot Sauce, five minutes in a small pan and never boiled. The method, how I prepare the jars and the full gift label are all in my hot honey recipe. For a gentler jar, make it with Exotic Caribbean Sauce and you get a passion fruit version.

A food gift has to be safe, so here are the rules from that recipe in short.

Make it the week you give it. Once you stir a sauce into honey you have added water, and it stops being a cupboard food. My hot honey lives in the fridge and keeps for four weeks, so do not make your gift jars in November. Start with a freshly opened jar of sauce and clean, dry jars.

Write a label that tells the truth. Made on [date]. Keep in the fridge. Use by [four weeks from that date]. Not suitable for babies under 12 months. Then copy the allergen information from the label on the sauce jar onto yours, so whoever opens it knows exactly what is inside.

No honey for babies under 12 months. Not this one, not any honey. The NHS is clear that honey can occasionally carry bacteria that lead to infant botulism, which is a very serious illness.

Dried chilli flakes, never fresh garlic or fresh chilli. Fresh garlic and chilli are low in acid, and sealed in honey at room temperature they can give botulism the conditions it needs. If you want flecks of chilli in the jar, use dried flakes.

To make a present of it, set the jar beside a Discovery Trio, Spicy, so they can taste the sauce the honey came from. And tell them the honey goes straight into their fridge.

A few honest notes before you buy

Rum. Both of my BBQ sauces are made with a dash of rum. If the person avoids alcohol, choose single jars of Caribbean Hot Sauce, Sauce Créole, Exotic or Herbal, which have none. Every set above includes at least one BBQ sauce.

Vegan. All six sauces are vegan, so they make an easy present for a vegan friend. The hot honey is not, because of the honey.

Allergens. Before you give a sauce to anybody with an allergy, check the label on the jar or bottle. The ingredients are also listed on each sauce’s own page.

Children. Heat is personal, and what feels gentle to you can feel fierce to a child. The Herbal sauce has no heat at all, so start there.

FAQ

Does hot sauce need to be refrigerated once opened?

Mine do. The storage advice for every one of my sauces is the same: once opened, keep refrigerated and use within eight weeks. Before it is opened, go by the best before date on the label. For any other sauce, follow what its own label says.

What is a good hot sauce gift for someone who does not like spicy food?

A single jar of Fresh Herbal Sauce, which has no heat at all. If you would rather give them a few to try, the Discovery Quartet, Fruity & Herbs keeps the heat gentle, and the Herbal is one of the four.

What are good stocking fillers for foodies?

Small things they will actually use up. The Discovery Trio, Spicy and the Discovery Quartet, Fruity & Herbs are both sets of 45g jars, so they can taste each sauce before they buy a full-size one.

Which set should I buy if I do not know how hot they like it?

The Complete Feast. It has all six sauces, from no heat to scotch bonnet, so whatever their taste, there is a jar in it for them.

One last thing

A jar of sauce is a small present. But choose it for the right person, at the right heat, and it ends up on their table every week until it is gone. Not many presents get used like that.

Joyeux Nwèl.

JP