“I NEVER had any intention of being a hot sauce magnate,” laughs Blackfire Food and hot pepper alchemist Tim McCarthy.
 
The founding father and recent recipient of a prestigious ‘Great Taste Award’ for his original hot sauces whose titles include Botanic, Hot House and best sellers Belfastard and ahem, Pain in the Hole, is preparing to, quite literally, set out his stall at Junction One ahead of December 25.
 
In between packing up his precious produce from his unit at Kennedy Way to take to the Antrim outlet, Finaghy man Tim told this reporter how he has always been “obsessed with food”.
 

“I could never really get a hot sauce here that I liked,” he said. “I thought to myself that I could start making it and started handing out samples around Christmas. I started putting a wee bit of branding together and was getting such great blind feedback, you know, people twice removed from myself would be coming back with good things to say.

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“I was tweaking things and ended up with five sauces and thought ‘right, let’s get these into bottles and see if any of the deli’s would take them.”
 
Tim said he “got his foot in the door” with Lisburn Road’s Arcadia deli and Fountain Street food emporium Sawers and how he thought “hold on a wee second, this could be a runner this business.” His Blackfire range is now sold in South Belfast’s French Village and at the butchery counter in Creightons Garage.
 
With Coronavirus and its subsequent restrictions putting the blinkers on movement and interaction, Tim spoke of how he simply but defiantly “worked through it”.
 

“I was supplying restaurants who were putting together artisan food boxes, hampers. When an Amazon delivery arrives you know yourself you can’t wait to open the parcel even though you ordered it yourself, it’s that notion of comfort in a way. For people’s mental health they were good to themselves and I was kinda part of that.
 
“I would normally do a lot of food markers but lost 15 of them in December alone. Carrickfergus, Larne, they dropped off and St George’s didn’t have their Twilight Market on so I just had to pivot and ring people up to see if they needed any hot sauces. I’ve been making up gift boxes from Kennedy Way to take up to Junction One. I have a box that offers mild, medium and hot, they are £10, it’s a price point that scare people off.”
When asked what his best seller is Tim replied: “The Belfastard”.
 
“It’s not as hot as Pain in the Hole but it’s that kind’ve sauce you can put on anything, that’s the one that flies.”
 
He said: “I sit on a Friday night and go ‘what’s next?’ My brand is very much Belfast. My sauces are Botanic, Hot House; I have one called Bonfire, which is chipotle. Ultimately I want to tap into the Irish-American thing simply because there is a lot of hot sauces coming through North America, there is a lot of Irish people out there and you put the two together. Nobody thinks of Ireland as a hot sauce producer,” he added.
 
With 2021 a mere couple of weeks away, Tim said that he has a new sauce, the ‘BT9’ in the works, two new chocolate bars and BBQ rubs to tantalise taste buds.
 
“I have polytunnels out the back of the house in Finaghy and a site in Kildare and a place in Cornwall growing chillis for me as well, which they will ring me come September time to tell me they are ready for harvesting.”
 
On his recent food ‘Oscar’ win, Tim said when he got the email “I near died”.
 
“There are up to 100 countries who enter these awards every year. There were 33,000 entries this year and to win is a real feather in your cap. There are certain delis who will only stock produce from producers who have won the Great Taste Awards, it’s the gold standard of food production and I’m delighted about that.
 
“The chili sauce community are like Star Trek, Star Wars fans, they are die hard, they turn up and ask about the acidity of the chilli’s I’ve used, they want to know about the whole process. I’m glad I’ve been able to grow them myself and to be able to give them that information, that one-to-one interaction.
 
“If you sell to one person a second time you know you are doing something right. That is pure satisfaction.”
 
For more information visit  or follow BlackFire Hot Sauces on Instagram.