These ‘alarmingly hot’ sauces are landing at Ireland’s first chilli festival in Cork
Hot sauce fanatics assemble!
When Ireland’s first-ever Irish Chilli Festival lands at Marina Market on June 27th and 28 th, it won’t just be about heat — it’ll be about the kind of heat that comes with backstories, fermentation timelines, and people who talk about chillies like they’re fine wine.
Among the most anticipated arrivals is Republic of Heat, the Berlin-born hot sauce subscription that’s quietly built a cult following across Europe since launching in 2025. The festival weekend marks its first-ever sale into Ireland — and they’re coming in hot.
They’re bringing two curated EHSA 2026 medal-winner boxes and a seven-bottle “Reaper Collection” collector’s set that sounds like something you should probably sign a waiver for.
View this post on Instagram
The brand sits firmly in the world of small-batch, obsessive food production — family farms, experimental fermentations, no extracts, no mass-market shortcuts. Just chilli makers doing deeply serious things with smoke, spice and time.
So what’s on offer?
The Europe’s Best box (€35 pre-order / €40 at the festival) sets the tone with sweet and slow heat: Maltese habaneros fermented with black garlic and tamarind, a German “hot goddess” glaze sauce, and a Berlin-made blackcurrant–cocoa–chilli hybrid that sounds like dessert until it very much isn’t.
Then there’s the Definitely Hot box, where things start to tilt into warning-label territory. Think Moruga Scorpion blended with blueberries from Czech greenhouses, and a Bavarian superhot built around 20% Trinidad Moruga Scorpion that has already picked up multiple Golds at EHSA 2026.
And then there’s the main event: The Reaper Collection (€90 pre-order / €110 at the festival). Seven Carolina Reaper sauces from across Europe, each one independently made, two of them described — without irony — as “alarmingly hot”.
There’s smoked chocolate and chipotle from Antwerp. A Slovakian Reaper sauce grown on a sustainable farm. A Berlin ferment that leans into Creole spice. A near-pure Norwegian Reaper mash at 92% and a Bulgarian rum-and-peach number.
“Chocoberrie is the most versatile sauce in either food box,” said Nathan Austin, Tasting Editor, Republic of Heat.
“A drop on dark chocolate desserts works, a drop on blue cheese works, a drop on game works. Most chilli sauces can’t do that without dominating.”
