ABOUT US

For years we have been keen brewers and fermenters: beers, wines, meads, pickles, sauerkrauts, kvass, hot sauces... the thrill persists. Fermentation is a way of domesticating decomposition. These jars and bottles house large populations of microbes that form complex ecological systems. Invisibly small organisms have been shaping life on the planet for as long as life has existed. But unlike the vast cycles that maintain the composition of the Earth's atmosphere or oceans, fermentation take place over timescales that we can observe – and taste – with our own senses. A jar of fermenting chillies provides a small window into the way that life happens, and the hot sauce these microbes create makes everything taste better.

Merlin Sheldrake is an ecologist, microbiologist, and bestselling and multi-award winning author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Cosmo Sheldrake is a multi-instrumentalist musician, producer, composer, and ecological sound artist. Both Merlin and Cosmo are keen brewers and fermenters, fascinated by the relationships that arise between humans and more-than-human organisms.

In 2018, they met Jonathan Hope, a fermentation nut specialising in making miso from local ingredients. Soon afterwards, they decided to launch a fermented hot sauce, combining the Sheldrake brothers' trusted formula with Jonathan's koji. In 2026, they launched their Smoky Oat Shoyu. All their products are made in Scotland, in a fermentation house which is also home to our sister company, Slow Sauce, run by Jonathan. Here, the sauces and shoyus are carefully barrel-aged in oak casks that originally housed Canadian maple syrup and then Scottish rum.

We hope you enjoy our sauces!