EPISODE 22: Wicked Smart Hot Sauce

Recorded August 2022

One of the things that makes Before the Business a special project is being able to get to know entrepreneurs whose products I use and admire. I’m a self-proclaimed spice lover, and I always have a few different kinds of hot sauce in my fridge, including Wicked Smart’s “Calypso”.

Born in Trinidad, founder Ifoma Smart immigrated to Canada at the age of four. In his home as a child, pepper sauce was everywhere, and it was served in generous amounts with every dish. He spent countless hours watching his grandmother, mother, aunts and uncles compete amongst other family members for who had the hottest sauce. They visited West Indian markets and handpicked the freshest ingredients to replicate the flavours of the sauces from back home.

So it was only natural for Ifoma to take what he learned from his family and adapt them to fit his own recipes. When his own mother asked him for his recipe, he knew he was on to something good. He again applying his knowledge to create products that will spice up any dish.

The appeal of the sauces is that they are not ignorantly hot without flavour... at least that’s what they would say in Trinidad. While he claims that these are not Trinidadian-style hot sauces, they certain respect his origins and his roots.