The power of peri-peri peppers
African Rhino isn’t a new brand to the market of hot sauces, but it’s new to us. The rhino on front of the bottle caught our attention and set it apart from other hot sauce brands.
The peri-peri pepper has a decent amount of kick in its red flesh, with Scoville heat units anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000. This makes it 6 to 40 times hotter than a jalapeño pepper. Since we’re not crazy about scorching our palates, we shocked ourselves when we decided to make this purchase. We banked on the fact the bottle of sauce claimed “Mild”.
Thankfully, this claim held true, and we were able to enjoy this sauce—tasting the different flavor notes of smoky, slightly sweet, and a lemony acid. The heat hit the back of our throats, allowing us to savor the rich blend of roasted tomatoes, onion, and roasted garlic.
African Rhino Peri-Peri Hot Sauce (mild version) is the perfect condiment for eggs and can be used to create marinades for chicken or fish. It is a product of the Kalahari Pepper Company, which has a traditional South African stew recipe posted on its Facebook page.
For the hot sauce, we give a big IMBHO-yes. It proved to be flavorful with the perfect punch of heat at the end.
For the company, it’s a meh… The social media was scarce. No official videos were found. The company website says, “Site will be available soon. Thank you for your patience! © Kalahari Pepper Company 2021.”
We found an article in the Birmingham Business Journal that said owners of the Kalahari Pepper Company are Dave Caswell and Phil Parkin. Written in 2001, it appears the owners were looking for additional funding to grow the business. Well, the business is still around, so maybe they met their goal. Who knows? No functional website and scarce social media. Hmmm…
But the sauce was good, so we stand by our recommendation of IMBHO-yes. We purchased our bottle of sauce from Amazon for $13.46.
Below is a video that gives a little insight into the peri-peri pepper, in case you want to grow them in your own garden.
