Welcome back to another one of our fantastic customer spotlight blogs. In this series of blogs we get to know some of our amazing Sen5es customers. We get to find out all about them, their business and the industry they are in.
As you know Sen5es has the best range of quality glass bottles and glass jars around. And to back up our amazing products. We offer the best customer service available. And these blogs are a culmination of that hard work.
We love being able to chat to our customers and give them a stage to promote their products. So let's dive in to this months customer spotlight where we talk to Liam from Heriot Hott. A hot sauce company based in Edinburgh.
Hi Liam. Thank you so much for being part of our customer spotlight series of blogs. Firstly can you tell us a bit about yourself and Heriot Hott?
My name is Liam and I am a big punster, punnosieur or whatever you would like to call it, personally I like punnosieur. The name Heriot Hott is a pun or play on the name of the university I studied at – Heriot-Watt University. This university gets its name from George Heriot and James Watt, and this is who Professor Heriot Hott is based on. As well as puns I love to cook and try new and different foods, anything to educate the palate. Heriot Hott is essentially everything I love to do, be it writing pun-filled sauce descriptions, trying out new flavour combinations or meeting new people through this medium.
What gave you the idea to start your own hot sauce company?
I never intended on starting a hot sauce business, I only ever wanted my own stock of hot sauce. I remember watching a video on YouTube on how to make hot sauce, after fermenting a bunch of scotch bonnets and blending them with vinegar and brine, I had my first, albeit incredibly spicy, hot sauce. Before long I had a fridge full of many different flavours of hot sauce, two of which are part of my current lineup – the Charred peach, scotch bonnet and spiced rum and the roasted pineapple and yellow habanero. I quickly ran out of fridge space and started offloading on to willing friends, they said they loved it and suggested I start selling it. This started the ball rolling.
I see you started the company during lockdown. What made you decide to do it then?
There was no real rhyme or reason to it really, I just had a lot of free time and had to keep busy somehow!
What was the most challenging thing about starting a company during the pandemic?
I didn’t experience that much difficulty starting the business, I had a lot of help from Tim Greaves who runs Foraged Fire. I reached out to him and he was really enthusiastic about getting me started, guiding me through the process and introducing me to producers, printers etc. I can’t thank him enough.
And what has been the most rewarding thing about starting your company?
The best thing about starting this business has been the people I have met during the journey. The hot sauce scene in the UK is full of great and helpful people, there’s a real sense of community there and it’s just priceless.
Your branding is very cool and has a really unique style. Where did you get the inspiration from?
I was in a really good position after I finished university, I’d met a lot of people from vastly different professions. One of these people happened to be a super talented illustrator, she has a very unique style I liked and I got in touch. I told her I had a name for the company and that I wanted Heriot Hott to be a professor designed in her particular style.
Which of your sauces is the most popular with your customers?
Our most popular sauce has got to be our Cherry, Bourbon and Vanilla BBQ, which recently won the best wild card hot sauce in BauceBrothers craft hot sauce awards. This sauce was almost a Cherry, Bourbon and Chocolate BBQ, it was a last minute decision to switch the chocolate for Vanilla.
Which is your favourite and why?
My favourite has got to be the King Alphonso Mango and Orange Habanero hot sauce. It is just quite different to the other mango hot sauces out there due to it containing saffron and green cardamom and also using fresh Indian mangos, which are just on a whole other level to the ones you typically find in supermarkets.
Do you have a favourite recipe that features one of your sauces?
I’m a huge fan of Mexican food in particular burritos, so much so I have a scoring system for Mexican eateries that sell burritos. My recipe would be for burritos that use my Charred Peach, Scotch Bonnet and Spiced Rum. The recipe isn’t available anywhere, but if people want it, I’d be more than happy to put it together.
Where do you get your inspiration for your sauces?
I’ve been very lucky to have been able to try lots of different foods from lots of different places, this experience and also having a penchant for cooking has inspired me to be creative with my sauces.
What have you go planned for the rest of 2022 and what can we expect to see in the future?
I have a lot of collaborations in the pipeline and a lot of spice blends that are ready to hit the market, so keep an eye out! Also going to start attending my local markets, so if you’re in and around Edinburgh, come down, say hi and get sauced.
How would you rate Sen5es as a supplier? Would you recommend us?
Been with them since the beginning and I’ve never looked back! Stuart is great to work with and the the time the business has been open is testament to their hard work.
What would you like to see from Sen5es? Is there anything we can do to improve our service?
Keep doing what you’re doing, if it ain’t broken don’t fix it!
It's great to be able to talk to such an amazing customer and see that all our hard work is paying off. Thank you so much to Liam for taking the time to be part of our blog.
If you are thinking of starting your own hot sauce company check out our fantastic range of hot sauce bottles today!
Or if you are a customer of ours and want to be featured in a blog like Heriot Hott. Let us know! We love hearing from our customers and it's great marketing for your small business.
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All the best
The team at Sen5es