u/PotsdamCommuter

The European independent hot sauce awards have just been announced... and the top 10 you need to find are here:

1. Chocoberrie, Pandemonic Hot Sauce, Germany
2. Hot Goddess, ME AND MY HOT SAUCE, Germany
3. Jamaican Jerk, Burnin Benzes Chilimanufaktur, Germany
4. Yellow Mellow, Ferment Island, Malta
5. Roasted Hell, Not That Spicy, Germany
6. ADIXION, HotZeg, Belgium
7. Blackberry & Chipotle, Såseriet, Sweden
8. Giclée Fatale, LAPAPETTE, Switzerland
9. Scorpion Grinder, Burnin Benzes Chilimanufaktur, Germany
10. Asinhas Infernais (Original Desafio), Piri-Piri & Co, Portugal

Have you tried them? have you found them?

(disclaimer - I work for Republic of Heat, a company associated with the Hot Sauce Awards)

The 2026 European Hot Sauce Awards have been announced in FULL

**Top 10 Europe Overall**

1. Chocoberrie, Pandemonic Hot Sauce, Germany

2. Hot Goddess, ME AND MY HOT SAUCE, Germany

3. Jamaican Jerk, Burnin Benzes Chilimanufaktur, Germany

4. Yellow Mellow, Ferment Island, Malta

5. Roasted Hell, Not That Spicy, Germany

6. ADIXION, HotZeg, Belgium

7. Blackberry & Chipotle, Såseriet, Sweden

8. Giclée Fatale, LAPAPETTE, Switzerland

9. Scorpion Grinder, Burnin Benzes Chilimanufaktur, Germany

10. Asinhas Infernais (Original Desafio), Piri-Piri & Co, Portugal

This isnt the full awards listing, just the top 10, more info and full awards on the site.

Stuff I'd genuinely like the sub's view on now the dust has settled:

- Have YOU tried any of these sauces? Do you think they deserve their positions? ARGUMENTS BELOW

- Any makers we should be watching going into 2027, the ones that didn't medal this year but you reckon will.

Big thanks to every maker who entered, every judge who actually chewed through their tasting panel,

# Tasting notes: the 14 podium sauces I've had on the desk so far. What did you make of them?

Halfway through revealing this year's categories, so figured I'd drop a tasting-notes digest of every podium sauce that's actually made it into a glass on my desk. Not all of them have. Some I'd never seen before the results came in. Honest impressions per sauce below.

**Extra Hot (31 entries)**

1. **Scorpion Grinder** by Burnin Benzes (Germany), Gold. 20% Scorpion Moruga blended with pineapple, carrot, banana, mustard. Burn hits top and back of mouth but the pineapple really does hold it together. Back-to-back winner, clear why.

2. **Asinhas Infernais** by Piri-Piri and Co (Portugal), Silver. Ships in a presentation box with an instruction manual on the back that just says "goodbye." Sweet, sticky, piri-piri plus vinegar plus salt plus honey. Reads more as a marinade than a pour. Genuinely impressive presentation.

3. **Krakenovy Slzy** by Gaston Chilli (Czech Republic), Bronze. Super thick, smells of curry wurst and cumin, tomato sneaks through. Slow heat, not instant. Different shape to most Extra Hots.

**Hot (64 entries)**

4. **Chocoberrie** by Pandemonic (Berlin), Gold. Fermented chocolate habanero with blackberry, apple, blackcurrant, red onion, cherry vinegar. Sweet up front then it kicks off. One of the standouts on the whole list for me.

5. **Roasted Hell** by Not That Spicy (Berlin), Bronze. Roasted Carolina Reaper plus chocolate Trinidad Scorpion plus carrot, sweet potato, rosemary. Carrot and sweet potato up front, then a slow Reaper-Scorpion build that doesn't quit. Water makes it worse. Numbed my tongue on camera.

**BBQ (10 entries)**

6. **La BBQ** by Yare Sauce (Switzerland), Gold. Not too sweet, very well balanced. Sugars don't burn off when you cook it down, which is where most BBQ marinades fall apart. Already gone through a bottle.

**Chili Honey (5 entries)**

7. **Hot Honey** by Pohorc Bio (Slovenia), Gold. Flower honey, apple cider, chili, spices, all organic. Very floral on the nose. Burn is strong but handled.

8. **Hot Honey** by Chilibolaget (Åland Islands, Finland), Silver. Fooled me completely on first taste. Smells and tastes like strawberry, isn't. Floral all the way through. This is the one going on ice cream.

9. **Volcanic Honey** by Not That Spicy (Berlin), Bronze. Madame Jeanette plus lemon habanero plus red habanero, fermented 150 days. Visible chili pieces and seeds. Second year running on this podium with the same sauce.

**Medium (70 entries)**

10. **Cranberry Cracker** by Not That Spicy (Berlin), Bronze. Ghost pepper plus cranberry, with the bitterness from the cranberry cutting against the sweetness most sauces lean into. Cinnamon, cloves, orange zest on the nose. Niche but really good. Christmas roast-dinner sauce.

**Mild (44 entries)**

11. **Peach Chili** by Løkken Gård Hvaler (Norway), Silver. Grapefruit, honey, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice. Peach hits first, chili kick follows. Basically a salad dressing with chili. I'm into it.

12. **Manga e Mel** by Piri-Piri and Co (Portugal), Bronze. Yellow scorpions with mango pulp and honey ("mel"). Sweet up front, chili in just behind. Pork or chicken sauce.

**Garlic (10 entries)**

13. **Garlic Chilli** by Svilis Pepper Farm (Latvia), Gold. Fermented, thick, lots of seeds, listed as mild, with Espelette and Cayenne in the mix. I loved it on camera, my co-host called it fishy and not his cup of tea. Exactly the kind of split that tells you the blind panel is working.

14. **Lemon Garlic** by Løkken Gård Hvaler (Norway), Bronze. Smooth, garlic and lemon working together really well. Same farm took silver in Mild, two podiums across two categories for one Norwegian operation.

**A few patterns I'm noticing across the 14:**

- Piri-Piri and Co from the Algarve picked up bronze in Mild and silver in Extra Hot. Two heat brackets, one maker, breakout for me.

- Løkken Gård in Norway took two podiums across Mild and Garlic. Small farm, big result.

- Burnin Benzes is the back-to-back Extra Hot champion.

- Geographic spread is the headline. Norway, Latvia, Slovenia, Finland, Czech Republic, Malta all on the board. The map is genuinely widening.

**A couple of things I'd love to hear from the sub:**

1. Where do your tastes diverge from the panel on the 14 above? The Garlic gold alone splits a room.

2. Anyone got the seven I didn't get on camera (Yellow Mellow, Smoked Ananas BBQ, Korean BBQ, Munnvold Yuzu, Kaathoon, Peach Riot, Farabuto)? Curious what you made of them before the next videos drop.

Next category goes up [day/time].

Trying to build a complete list of independent hot sauce shops across Europe, walk-in retail and online makers both. Posting the first country here because I need help filling the gaps. Germany so far, after digging through r/de, r/berlin, r/hotsauce, OpenStreetMap and a stack of Impressums:

Walk-in retail (a physical store you can actually visit)

Berlin

• Pfefferhaus, Niederbarnimstraße 11, Friedrichshain. pfefferhaus.de
• Chili & Paprika, Danziger Straße 118, Prenzlauer Berg
• American Lifestyle US-Shop, Attilastraße 177, Tempelhof (American imports, carries US sauces) Köln
• Hennes Finest, hennesfinest.com (pepper showroom, persönlich vor Ort or by phone)
• The English Shop (British imports, incidental hot sauce) München
• i.Shop Asia Markt, Bogenhausen (Asian / Latin market) Koblenz
• Pfeffersack & Soehne, An der Liebfrauenkirche 1. pfeffersackundsoehne.de (premium spices, hot sauce assortment unverified)

Online retailers

• Pepperworld Hot Shop, pepperworldhotshop.com
• Chili-Shop24, chili-shop24.de (also chili-food.de, possibly same operator)
• Brasil Latino, brasil-latino.de (Latin American, El Yucateco range)
• Bambule Schoppen, bambuleschoppen.de (Best Worscht in Town)
• Tapatio DE, tapatio.de
• Grillfuerst, grillfuerst.de (BBQ, carries hot sauce)
• Hela Shop, hela-shop.eu

Makers (mostly DTC, walk-in unverified)

• Crazy Bastard Sauce, Berlin Neukölln. Weserstr. 168 is the manufacturing site, not confirmed as a walk-in shop. crazybastardsauce.com
• Mexican Tears, Bremen. mexicantears.de
• Hot Mamas, Regensburg, made by Händlmaier. hotmamas.de
• Akoba Foods, Augsburg. akoba-foods.com
• Ravensfeuer, Ravensburg. ravensfeuer.com (Impressum confirms no factory shop)
• FYM Hotsauce. fymhotsauce.rocks

What I'm missing

Walk-in retail is the biggest hole. There has to be more than three real chili shops in Germany. If you know one in your city, drop the name and street below. Specifically:

• Pepperworld HQ showroom anywhere?
• Hofläden or farm shops growing chili and selling on site?
• Asian or Latin markets in your city with a genuine hot sauce section
• Hamburg, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Dresden, Leipzig, Düsseldorf, Hannover, Bremen: nothing has surfaced for any of these so far Next country coming soon. Vote in the comments for which one I tackle next: NL, FR, IT, ES, Nordics.