Belizean Habanero Sauce

Marie Sharp began making hot sauce in her kitchen in the Stann Creek valley in 1981 from habaneros grown on the family farm, blended with carrot and onion, and it became so completely standard that a Belizean restaurant table without a bottle of it looks wrong. The range runs from mild through to a version made with the naga jolokia that comes with a genuine warning. The factory outside Dangriga runs tours by arrangement, showing the whole process from the pepper fields to bottling. The carrot base is what distinguishes it from Caribbean sauces built on mustard or on vinegar alone.

What you actually see

• The factory - the whole process from pepper to bottle, near Dangriga.
• The habanero fields - the crop the sauce is built on.
• The heat range - from mild through to naga jolokia.
• The carrot base - what separates it from other Caribbean sauces.

When to go

Year-round. Factory tours need arranging in advance and run on weekdays. The sauce is in every supermarket at a fraction of the souvenir shop price, and buying it there rather than at the airport is the sensible move.

Honest expectations

The hottest versions are genuinely dangerous to the unprepared and the warnings on them are not marketing. Factory tours are short and need booking; turning up unannounced will not work. Exporting glass bottles means checked luggage and careful packing.

Nearby

Dangriga is fifteen minutes; Hopkins is half an hour south.