At the Cajun Hot Sauce Festival held last month in New Iberia Parish, LA, Captain Mowatt’s Canceaux Sauce earned top honors. (Canceaux is the name of Mowatt’s Portland-burning warship.) This mix of red chilies and garlic was awarded the coveted People’s Choice award in the hot sauce cookoff.
Guess who won it last year? That’s right, the big boys of Tabasco.
“It’s very surprising,” says Dan Stevens, owner of Portland-based W.O. Hesperus Co., which brews up Captain Mowatt’s. “It’s nice to win, but you can’t get too full of yourself.”
But you can get a little hot around the collar, especially with all the recent accolades.
In addition to the win in Louisiana, Captain Mowatt’s picked up a handful of medals at the recent Hot Pepper Awards in New York City. The show’s top award for BBQ sauce went to Captain Mowatt’s Bar Harbor-Que, a spicy mix featuring wild Maine blueberries and raspberries. The Bar Harbor-Que also landed the top spot in the competition’s Fruit BBQ Sauce category, while the Shipyard Beer-B-Que Sacue won second place in the Hot BBQ Sauce slot, the Blue Flame grabbed third place in the Fruit Hot Sauce category and the whole company snagged the Hybrid Pepper Award, given to the “sauce maker that thinks outside the box.”
Right now the maverick sauce maker sells more than 20 varieties on its website (www.wohesperus.com), but more are always in the works.
“I make them in my head for a few months,” Stevens says of his creative process. “Then when I start putting things in my pot and start weighing things out, I’m pretty close to where I want to be.”
Stevens, who eats the hot stuff for breakfast, lunch and dinner, says he always has a recipe in mind when he concocts a sauce.
“For the Greenie, I had omelets in mind,” Stevens says of the sauce that mixes jalapenos and avocados. “Wherever I go for breakfast in the morning, I bring a bottle with me.”
A fan of Buffalo wings (which he eats at least three times a week), Stevens points to the classic Canceaux Sauce as a perfect spicy kick for chicken (see recipe on page 27). Although hot freaks would go for the Jolly Roger. For fish and seafood lovers, the Scurvy Dog is a prime choice, with hints of lemon and lime. But there are plenty of other uses for this spicy, summer sauce.
“I had a customer come by the other day and buy two cases of Scurvy Dog just to make guacamole,” Stevens says.
Those looking for something a little different, might want to try the Undressing (AKA hot sauce for salad) or the Shark Bite Mustard (what heat lovers grab when they need some of the yellow stuff). A new sauce just for lobster should be on store shelves come summer.
“They’re like wine,” Stevens says of his sauces brewed in small three gallon batches. “Some burn on the tip of your tongue. Some burn the back of your throat. Some take a while to hit. It’s a whole experience.”
Stevens admits that the triple X Jolly Roger is too hot for him to enjoy more than a few drops in chili, but he adds “a day’s not complete without something spicy.”
— Avery Yale Kamila
Find Captain Mowatt’s sauces in local stores and online at www.wohesperus.com. You also can find owner Dan Stevens on the summer festival circuit, including the Yarmouth Clam Fest, the South Berwick Strawberry Fest and the Cumberland Craft Show.