It’s quite wonderful to find an entrepreneur like Jason Mc Pherson who creates “something” for the love of it and not for gain.My introduction to this wonderfully tasty but hot chilli sauce was a necessity to have a chilli sauce in the house before my “chilli-head” son as they call fanatical chilli-lovers arrived on a visit. Now my son is a connoisseur of chillies, and his first comment on tasting Jason’s chilli sauce was a meaningful “WOW”. We had struck gold, and he left Aberdeen with quite a few bottles clutched under his arm.
Out of purely selfish reasons I asked Jason for an interview on his sauce making, and found a wealth of knowledge about this wonderful capsicum and also the maker of this unforgettable sauce.
First of all the heat testing level of a chilli is done by using the “Scoville Units” test which is rated on a level of 0 – 10. This apparently is the amount of glasses of water one has to drink to ease the burning sensation of the mouth.
Jason makes his sauce, which is an old family recipe, and a closely guarded secret, using a base of red Jalapeño Chillies rated at 5.5 to one Habanera Chilli which has a rating of 10. The source of the Habanera Chili is the Yucatan and Caribbean which has a heat source of 10. This sauce is bottled by Jason and the attractively designed label reads “HABANERO HAVANA” which means from Cuba.
That is all Jason would divulge, apart from the fact that the longer the sauce is in the bottle the tastier it gets.
The Habanera Chilli comes in 4 different colours, red, yellow, plum, and a green so dark it almost looks mauve. The chilli tree bears for about 3-4 years and should be grown apart from any other pepper as the cross pollination can occur and this will obviously change chili strength and flavour.
There are over 200 varieties of chilli, and new chillies are still being discovered. The latest was discovered in India in 2002 and is called the Naga Jolokia Ata and has a blistering rating of 855 units!
The quietly spoken Jason who is originally from Zimbabwe, although his grandparents are from the Die Hell area, settled in Aberdeen 18 years ago, and is still totally content to be in this lovely Karoo town. Jason, like so many of us, happened upon Aberdeen when he was least expecting to, and was overwhelmed by the serenity, the incredible luiwater, the beautiful old Karoo homes, and the people who live here. The prices of the houses then also had a lot to do with it.
The chilli has an enormous following and chilli tasting is up there with wine tasting. There are chilli clubs all around South Africa, and chilli festivals are held in many towns, the most recent festival was in Port Elizabeth about 3 months ago. Chilli sauce making is an art, and eating chillies is extremely healthy. Most restaurants have their own special variety of chilli sauce, and one can always tell the standard of a restaurant by the chilli sauce served. We, the privileged few in Aberdeen, are able to purchase a few bottles of “Habanera Havana” from time to time.
Article By: Joan Tinker