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Why Spice Island Chilli and other stories.
Hi. I'm Liam.
The History
In case you didn't know, Portsmouth is an historic naval city. In fact, Portsmouth is where Henry VIII first officially formed England's Royal Navy back in 1546. Although I have travelled, I've lived in Portsmouth all my life. Born into its rich maritime history of international trade routes and global voyages of discovery, I've been lucky enough to have on my doorstep the evocative vistas of the South Coast and Spice Island, the historic location of maritime trade and customs in the area of Portsea known as Old Portsmouth.
The Chilli
Whether it was curry night or a sliver of fresh ghost naga at the local chilli festival, I've always 'warmed' to the thrill of the chilli challenge.
Between 2010 and 2014 I was lucky enough to travel and live throughout Europe. Mainly experiencing the cultures and, more importantly, the foods of France, mainland Spain, Northern & Southern Italy, as well as rural & coastal Croatia. However, it was the year I spent in the Balearics that my love affair for chillies really began to form.
From the farmers' markets held in the 'old towns', I could buy huge strings of fresh, colourful chilli peppers of all types. I'd buy loads. Way more than I could eat in one go. Before the chillies I hadn't used were wasted, I'd hang them up in the Mediterranean heat as kitchen decorations drying them out and eventually grinding them into chilli flakes.
Whilst experimenting, I decided that blending the fresh chillies along with other ingredients was a more exciting route to preservation and a more versatile way of using the hot concoctions in all forms of home cooking. Once I returned to the UK this routine continued and I began to experiment further at replicating and scaling my own home made chilli sauce recipes. Having tested the market for many years now, I'm proud to have created five varied, versatile and very popular flavours in the range.
And the rest is history.
Spice Island Chilli®, based in Portsmouth, is a fusion of my two passions: History and Chilli.
It’s the reason I continue to create my handmade range of chilli sauces, sharing with you my interest for awesome new tastes and flavours, and the historic tales of adventure that helped inspire me to create my range of Portsmouth based, premium quality chilli sauces.
You can read more about what happened next on my chilli blog, here.
https://www.spiceislandchilli.com/post/hot-on-history-1