ABOUT US

For years we have been keen brewers and fermenters: beers, wines, meads, pickles, sauerkrauts, kvass, hot sauces... the thrill persists. Fermentation is a way of domesticating decomposition. These jars and bottles house large populations of microbes that form complex ecological systems. Invisibly small organisms have been shaping life on the planet for as long as life has existed. But unlike the vast cycles that maintain the composition of the Earth's atmosphere or oceans, fermentation take place over timescales that we can observe – and taste – with our own senses. A jar of fermenting chillies provides a small window into the way that life happens, and the hot sauce these microbes create makes everything taste better.

The saucery takes place in a two-stage process. First, we make koji by introducing a specialised fungus to rice (koji is ancient fermented food that forms the basis of miso and soy sauce). We then add the koji to a brine containing chillies, onions, and garlic, where it undergoes a lacto-fermentation (the process that creates ferments like sauerkraut and kimchee). The result is a versatile sauce with rich, umami undertones. We use it in and on everything from eggs, sandwiches, tacos, soups, pasta sauces, stocks, and as a base for a devastating chipotle mayonnaise.

Merlin Sheldrake is an ecologist, microbiologist, and bestselling and multi-award winning author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Cosmo Sheldrake is a multi-instrumentalist musician, producer, composer, and ecological sound artist. Both Merlin and Cosmo are keen brewers and fermenters, fascinated by the relationships that arise between humans and more-than-human organisms. In 2018, they met Jonathan Hope, a fermentation nut specialising in making miso from local ingredients (which you can find, among other places, on the menu of Ottolenghi's Rovi). Soon afterwards, they decided to launch a fermented hot sauce, combining the Sheldrake brothers' trusted formula with Jonathan's koji.