The pack contains a neat little traffic-light "mild, medium and hot" sampling (or rather, "Hot and Sweet", "Very Hot", and "Seriously Hot" - but as a purveyor of mainly non-spicy food products, such labels mean very little). The green one is a "Mexican Hot & Sweet Jalapeño Sauce", the yellow a "Very Hot Cajun Sauce" which seems to be a nice mustard-based sauce pepped up with some C. chinense, and the "Seriously Hot Caribbean Sauce" which seems to be a vehicle for Scotch Bonnet's and Habanero's, and looks suspiciously like Encona's famed Scotch Bonnet sauce.
Before we continue, I just want to flag up something which my pedantic side noted and has been triumphantly crowing over Cottage Delight for since I got the sauces. While (gratefully) none of the sauce titles include the word "Habanero", in all the ingredient lists and descriptions they consistently misspell the most beloved of C. chinense peppers as "Habañero". This is the most common example of a mistake called a hyperforeignism, where accents and diacritics are erroneously applied to a word of foreign origin. The tilde (that little squiggly line, which is correctly applied in Jalapeño) denotes that the "n" sound is pronounced with a "ny" sound (ha-la-pen-yo*). There is, however, no tilde in Habanero, and (apparently) it doesn't even make sense for there to be one there anyway (although I don't speak Spanish, so I can't confirm that). For this reason, I am going to bask in my smug superiority and relentlessly mock this otherwise laudable food company by spelling their name "Cöttáge Dêlĭght" for the rest of this review.
Tasting Notes: All three of these sauces have a thick-but-runny consistency, with shreds of fruit and spices in them. As a fan of runny liquid sauces like Tabasco, or the ones from the South Devon Chilli Farm, this is a little offputting - especially in the Jalapeño sauce, which is clear and smooth and... well, to my thinking, wants to be a lot runnier than it is. It has been thickened with Xantham gum to make it almost have the consistency of a glaze, or possibly a Thai sweet chilli dipping sauce (which, incidentally, is a style of sauce I'm not over thrilled with in general). Perhaps that makes it more useful in the kitchen - it's certainly a lot less likely to run off whatever surface you pour it on, so it probably copes better with a sandwich that a runny sauce would - but if you're dashing it onto something like tabasco it doesn't mix or spread effectively. The smell is quite mild, no overpowering vinegar smell, and there are notes of the rich jalapeño chilli in there. As the name suggests, this is a quite sweet sauce, and the flavours balance quite well with a nice warm glow. Interestingly, there's a detectable trace of black pepper in there which is a nice touch.
Next up is the cajun sauce. As an opaque mustard-yellow sauce, the thickness seems much more appropriate here, but at this point it makes it a bit difficult to pour. These seem to be 60ml "taster" bottles, so a larger bottle might solve that. The smell has a lovely sweet American mustard tone that's also forward in the flavour. The chilli's come in last, but the chinense chillis are definitely there in the aftertaste, and leave a pleasant but not overwhelming warmth as they pass. It might just be my deadened tongue, but I actually don't taste that much difference between the "Very Hot" Cajun and the merely "Hot" mexican. It is a touch hotter, but I doubt I'd have been able to tell if I wasn't told beforehand.
Lastly, the Caribbean sauce. It's really difficult not to make comparisons with Encona here, since the sauces are so similar. In fact, comparing the ingredients list, I find that they're the same - right down to the proportion of pepper mash in each (64%). Still, they are slightly different sauces - the Encona is slightly more opaque, and the spices are a touch richer in the Cöttáge Dêlĭght sauce - but you'd be hard pressed to tell them apart unless you were sampling them back to back (like I just did. Om nom nom). Not that this is a bad thing, as such - Encona is a firm favourite of mine. But I don't need to track down a delicatessen and pay through the nose to buy Encona.
What's it Good For
The first two of these are lovely rich sauces with quite complex flavours that I think work best as "topping" sauces for pepping up something with a milder flavour, like a ham sandwich. Their thickness makes them better for toppings rather than as condiments (like Tabasco), and the complexity would make them a waste to use in cooking. Both of them would make quite nice dipping sauces, although if you want to do this go for the larger bottles (Cöttáge Dêlĭght sell them individually at 220ml). While I've acquired the taste for Encona more or less on it's own or as a topping, and so will happily munch on the Caribbean Hab and Bonnet sauce in the same way, the salt-heavy flavour probably lends itself better to use as a cooking ingredient.
Final Thoughts
I'm actually really torn as to which of the milder sauces I prefer. They both have a lot of really nice flavour going for them, and have new and interesting aspects that I don't often find the "mainstream" sauces. I'd like to be a bit more generous with both of them, but with such small bottles I could quite easily polish them off in a single serving. I'm particularily pleased with the Jalapeño sauce, which has an interesting combination of lovely flavours. I have once before had a similar mustard-style sauce as the Cajun (and other sauces in this style certainly exist) but I haven't tried one in years, and it's a welcome try of something new. It's hard not to be a little disappointed with the Caribbean sauce which is (to all intents and purposes) Encona - of course it does what it does perfectly well, I was hoping for something a touch more original (and it makes me wonder whether the Jalapeño sauce, which I'm so impressed with about it's original, might be similarily stealing a recipe from something I haven't tried yet).
I'm not necessarily convinced by the names either - Jalapeño's are certainly mexican, although the "Mexican Inspired" recipe seems to have been anglicised (black pepper, while not unheard of, is not a common spice in Mexican or even in "Tex-Mex" cuisine). To great effect, I should add, but still. Both the "Cajun" and "Caribbean" sauces claim to be "West Indian inspired", and while the West Indes is pretty much synonymous with the Caribbean, I'm struggling to link Louisiana's Cajun populace to it. Still, this is just nitpicking over what are really nice sauces (I'm probably being extra harsh about a mild marketing gimmick because of the whole "Habañero" thing).
The Verdict: Worth a try if you can find it. Better still, convince someone to get you some for Christmas!
* if your ordering them from a certain purveyor of pizza's Sheffield that shall remain nameless, Cha-la-pee-no is more likely to be understood.
