Our Products - origina

Heat From The Hammer has two distinct product lines: sauces and snacks.  The snacks are made with the sauces providing that addictive heat feeling in addition to the bold flavour.   We currently have three hot sauces:  Rousay Red #5 , Pollo Y Pescado and Molten Mango.  In addition to our hot sauces we also have spicy sauces:  Balsamic Burn Marinade/Sauce and Cherry Fusion BBQ Sauce.  Our snack line currently features Heat From Above: Fiery Cheese Bites and Steeltown Spicy Sunflower Seeds.  We are pleased to announce we have also added our Battlefield Boost Trail Mix for a limited time!  Below are the stories of our products, please check them out!

HOT SAUCES

ROUSAY RED #5 HOT SAUCE

Rousay Red #5 is our flagship product.  Most of  what we create uses our all-purpose hot sauce as  an ingredient.  The sauce is a combination of red  Thai chilis, red finger chilis (aka red hot chili  peppers) and Scotch Bonnet peppers.  The distinct  flavour hits you first then the heat comes.  For those  just getting used to hot sauce this will seem medium  to high heat for you.  The seasoned vets will likely  find this on the medium section of the hot scale.   

This sauce is the ultimate utility sauce: on eggs,  garnish for hot dogs (or our favourite: chili dogs), as  a flavour/heat boost to pasta sauce, topping for  pizza, added to chili to bring the heat, on burritos, as a wing sauce, on oysters and other seafood dishes.  Our ultimate use for Rousay Red #5 is in Canada's  most celebrated cocktail: The Caesar!  

The name comes from the island of Rousay (pronounced R-ow-see) in Orkney, Scotland.  The shield is a variation of the Orcadian flag. The Costie family immigrated from their homeland to Hamilton, ON in the mid 1800s and the name is a nod to my mom's ancestry on her father's side.  To this day we have relatives living on Rousay!  The #5 represents that this was our 5th attempt at making a hot sauce which fortunately for us turned out to be "the one".

 

POLLO Y PESCADO HOT SAUCE

Pollo Y Pescado (pronounced Poy-yo Eee Pes-cad-o) is a Mexican inspired hot sauce that loosely translates to "Chicken and Fish". The heat  is less intense than Rousay Red #5 but it is equally  as flavourful.  The sauce is yellow-green in colour due to the ingredients used to make it:  jalapenos, Scotch  Bonnet peppers, tomatillos, tomatoes and avacados.  Lime  juice is added to enhance the flavour. 

With its citrus hints this hot sauce is perfectly paired with any chicken or fish dishes:  basted on BBQ chicken  breasts, wing sauce, added to salads containing  chicken or even tuna, on baked fish dishes such as  a side of salmon or haddock fillets, perfect on  chicken or fish tacos and burritos.  Shrimp or scallops can be sauteed in this versatile sauce. One of our  favourite uses is to add a touch of heat and flavour  to chicken noodle soup. These are just our suggestions but feel free to try it on anything!  We hear it also tastes good with pork!

One day we needed something to baste shrimp skewers with and we started thinking of things that would taste good together specifically with shrimp.  After liking the taste we modified the baste to be an actual hot sauce.  Burrito night is our favourite dinner night and this sauce goes perfectly with chicken and shrimp burritos. This logo is special to us as it was designed by our oldest daughter making this a true family affair!

 

MOLTEN MANGO HOT SAUCE

 When trying to think of the most brightest-orangest thing possible two things come to mind: lava and molten steel.  Although there are no volcanoes in the Hammer (its ok I'm a geologist, I've checked.  Nothing but sedimentary rocks to see here), we do have steel and lots of it. With names like Dofasco, Stelco and National Steel Car, the industrial north end of Hamilton is dominated by the massive buildings used to make steel. As an awe inspired child in the 70s driving through the streets that dissected the steelworks and peering into the giant buildings and catching a rare glimpse of the bright orange lava like liquid  being poured was always a highlight.

Our Molten Mango Hot Sauce  was mentioned to me by my friend Natasha who suggested we try making something with mangoes.  Challenge accepted and within a week we had it!  Mangoes, Navel Oranges and persimmon provide the sweet fruity taste and scotch bonnets provide the heat.  Its bright orange colour is reminiscent of my childhood memories of seeing the freshly made steel! 

NIKOLA'S ELECTRIC ELIXIR

 In 1898 Hamilton became the first city in Canada to adopt NIkola Tesla's AC electrical system sending power from the Decew Falls generating plant in St Catharines to Victoria   Ave in Hamilton approx 54 km away.  This gave Hamilton a cheap source of energy making the city an industrial  powerhouse and gave rise to the city's steel manufacturing industry. To commemorate Tesla's contributions to the growth of Hamilton a portion of Burlington Street running    through the city's industrial north end was officially  renamed Nikola Tesla Blvd.

 Our ginger-turmeric sauce has an electric taste that will shock your meals with flavour!  The combination of fresh   ginger, turmeric and scotch bonnet peppers adds a jolt to your dishes!  The heat is on the mild to medium end of the heat spectrum but combined with the flavour it creates an outstanding addition to any meat or fish dish especially in soups and in stirfry.

 

SPICY SAUCES

BALSAMIC BURN MARINADE/SAUCE

Balsamic Burn Marinade was purely a result of the pandemic lockdown in 2020. Val is from North Tonawanda and Western NY is famous for Chiavetta's sauce, a brown vinegar based marinade used primarily on chicken. The towns of Western NY often have fundraisers selling bbq'd Chiavetta's chicken and we always had access to an ample supply. Until 2020. Unable to visit Val's family in the States our stockpile of Chiavetta's disappeared rapidly.

Faced with no timeframe to be able to procure more we took matters into our own hands and tried to create something similar. Balsamic vinegar dominates the taste and is followed up with the heat from our trusty Rousay Red #5 hot sauce. Throw in some roasted sesame seeds, old fashioned mustard and homemade ketchup and you have something that is, well, delicious. The only way I can think of describing it is kinda of like a teriyaki sauce gone sour with added heat. Maybe. You'll have to try for yourself and tell me what it tastes like!

CHERRY FUSION BBQ SAUCE

 

Did you know that Hamilton is home to a nuclear reactor at McMaster University?  It has been operational since 1959 and is Canada's largest research reactor.  Merging two things together to make something new is the basic premise of fusion. When we set about making a bbq sauce we knew we were going to add Rousay Red #5 to give it a kick but we wanted something that would give it a unique, bold flavour that was something other than mesquite or chipotle. We decided on cherries as the other element.

Cherry Fusion is a thick, dark, sweet sauce with the unmistakable flavour of cherries fused with the heat of  Rousay Red #5.  Its quite versatile and can be used as a true bbq sauce on meats, as a dipping sauce for nachos or chicken nuggets or it can be used as a topping on burgers or rice dishes.  We've even had someone put it on vanilla ice cream!

SNACKS

HEAT FROM ABOVE:  FIERY CHEESE BITES

Heat From Above: Fiery Cheese Bites are a crunchy and spicy snack made from baked cheddar cheese with Rousay Red #5 hot sauce brushed on it.  The idea came from trying "Lava cheese" on a flight to Iceland.  We took that idea and made it spicy!  Once you put the crunchy snack in your mouth you taste the cheese then after a second or two you start to feel the heat.  From the moment you take the first bite you will find yourself reaching for more!

The Lancaster bomber pictured in the logo makes its home at the Canadian Heritage  Warplane Museum located beside Hamilton Airport and is one of only two of these remaining  World War 2 bombers that is still able to fly.  It can be seen flying over the skies of Hamilton during the warmer months of the year. Its unmistakable rumble as it passes overhead leaves you in awe and to this day every time I hear it approaching I run outside to catch a glimpse of this magnificent machine.  Hopefully the taste of the Heat From Above: Fiery Cheese Bites leaves you feeling the same way! 

 

STEELTOWN SPICY SUNFLOWER SEEDS

Steeltown Spicy Sunflower Seeds are another snack where we said to ourselves "we can do that better".  After buying some flavoured sunflower seeds in the shell and being disappointed that they did not taste as advertised we set about making our own version.  Sunflower seeds in the shell  are covered in Rousay Red #5 hot sauce and roasted dry.  These are highly addictive.  The warmth on your lips from the hot sauce leaves you wanting more! 

The steel mills of Hamilton were the backbone of the city's industry going back to the early 1900s.  Hearing the stories of the sweltering conditions in the mills and how unbearable hot it was make me sweat just thinking about it.   The flavour of our sunflower seeds was inspired  by those stories.  We have been surprised to learn that some people enjoy the flavour so much that they actually eat the shells too!  We love that there are no rules with our products so feel free to use them in as many creative ways as you can think of!

BATTLEFIELD BOOST TRAIL MIX