Four hot sauces, fermented in crocks and rested in oak, made in Bristol.
Two of us, a rented kitchen in Bedminster, and a wall of stoneware crocks. Each sauce is a ferment — five weeks at the shortest, fourteen months at the longest — and the four arrive by post every month, or from the shelf at an independent grocer.
Start a subscription See the four sauces
Boxes are packed on Mondays and Thursdays. Post is £3.95, free over £30; single bottles from £8.50.
The four
Every sauce is fermented whole — no mash bought in, no gums, no added sugar beyond the fruit you can taste. Heat is scored out of five, and the bottle gets darker as it climbs.
-
Fireside
Oak-smoked red jalapeños, garlic and a spoon of smoked paprika. Six weeks in the crock turns the sharpness into something round and faintly sweet.
Good with eggs, tacos, the last of the roast potatoes.
Heat 2 / 5
-
Orchard
Bramley apples and habanero, nine weeks. Sharp first, hot second — and the apple does the sweetening on its own.
Good with roast pork, strong cheddar, a fried-egg sandwich.
Heat 3 / 5
-
Ash
Chipotle morita, black garlic and charred onion. Five weeks, and the smoke does the talking — deep rather than sharp.
Good with chilli, long braises, anything off the barbecue.
Heat 3 / 5
-
Cellar
Carrot and scotch bonnet, rested fourteen months in oak barrels in the arch. Our hottest by a distance, and the one people write to us about. Go easy to start.
Good with rice, noodles, and anyone who claims nothing is hot enough.
Heat 5 / 5
What arrives, and when
Boxes go out on Mondays and Thursdays. Skip a month, swap a bottle, or stop entirely from the link in your confirmation email — there is no phone call to make and no retention offer to sit through.
-
The Monthly Four
All four bottles, 600 ml, post included. The cheapest way to keep a full shelf, and the one most people take.
£32a month
-
The Monthly Two
Any two bottles you like, 300 ml, post included. Swap them from month to month as your taste changes.
£18a month
-
Cellar Releases
The barrel-aged batches, sent the week they are bottled and before they reach any shelf. Four hundred boxes each release.
£26twice a year
Single bottles are £8.50–£11 and post is £3.95, free over £30. Everything is UK only for now.
Inside the crocks
Every sauce starts the same way: whole chillies, fruit or vegetable, sea salt and nothing else, in a 20-litre stoneware crock. The salt draws the water out of the chillies, and the lactic bacteria already living on their skins do the rest. We don't add a starter culture, and we don't pasteurise the ferment away.
When a batch tastes right we blend it, bottle it into 150 ml glass and give it a short hot fill — enough to stop it working on the shelf, not enough to cook the flavour out. The two oak-aged sauces rest far longer: Cellar sits in barrels for fourteen months, topped up like a solera.
Fermenting now: Cellar, batch 019 — six months into its fourteen.
| Sauce | Ferment | Salt | Cellar temp | Batch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fireside | 6 weeks | 2.4% | 21 °C | 041 |
| Orchard | 9 weeks | 2.2% | 19 °C | 038 |
| Ash | 5 weeks | 2.5% | 22 °C | 040 |
| Cellar | 14 months | 2.0% | 15 °C | 019 |
On the shelf
You'll find the four at a couple of dozen independent grocers across the South West. Six of them:
- Bovey & SonsNorth Street, Bedminster
- The LarderStokes Croft, Bristol
- Ootham GrocersWalcot Street, Bath
- Marrow & RindCowbridge Road, Cardiff
- Kendall's Fine FoodsCatherine Hill, Frome
- The ProvisionerFore Street, Exeter
Not near any of those? Ask the shop you do use to stock us — we deliver to independents across the South West and the wholesale sheet starts at £60. Email wholesale@emberandoak.co.uk with your shop name and postcode.
What we don't do
Most of what a sauce is comes down to what's left out. So, in plain terms:
- We don't buy in chilli mash. Every chilli is fermented whole, in this kitchen, by us.
- No gums, no xanthan, no thickeners. If a sauce pours thin, that's the ferment talking.
- No added sugar beyond the fruit — which is why Orchard is the only sweet one.
- No mild version. Fireside is as gentle as we go; anything less isn't a hot sauce.
- No next-day delivery. Bottles are packed twice a week and that's that.
Questions we get
How hot is hot, honestly?
Cellar is genuinely hot — scotch bonnet, scored 5 out of 5, and the one to buy last. Fireside is a 2 and the place to start. If you're not sure, take The Monthly Two and pick Fireside and Orchard together.
Can I pause, skip or cancel?
Any time, from the link in your confirmation email. Skip a month, swap a bottle or stop entirely. There's no phone call to make and nothing to sit through.
Do you post outside the UK?
Not yet. Fermented sauce and a 30 °C customs warehouse don't get on, so it's UK only while we work out cold packing. Email us if you want to know when that changes.
Is it vegan, and are there allergens?
All four are vegan — no honey, no fish sauce, no dairy. They're made in a kitchen that also handles mustard and celery, so those two are named on every label.
What if I don't like one of them?
Tell us and we'll swap it in your next box, or refund the bottle. We'd rather you had four you actually use than a row of ornaments.
How long does an open bottle keep?
Unopened, a year from bottling. Once it's open, keep it in the fridge and use it within a couple of months — it carries on working slowly, so a bottle left open will get sharper and hotter the longer it sits.