Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster’s acclaimed Broadway show ‘The Music Man’ Extends Run By Two Weeks
Broadway’s hit revival of The Music Man starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster is extending its run by two weeks, with a new closing date now set for Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023.
“The hunger of audiences for our show continues unabated,”
said producer Kate Horton in a statement.
“We are grateful to Hugh and Sutton and our entire glorious company for agreeing to add these additional 16 performances. The joy they bring to audiences night after night is incredible to witness and we know this The Music Man will be remembered long after the final curtain comes down. If we could go on forever, we would.”
Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster’s ‘The Music Man’ Extends Run
The production, which often tops Broadway’s weekly grosses, at around $3 million while now a year into its run, was originally scheduled to close New Years Day January 1 when Jackman exits.
However, small change of plans.
Now both Jackman and co-star Sutton have agreed to keep the curtain up for another two weeks.
When the show closes in mid-January, The Music Man will have played 374 regular and 46 preview performances.
The two-week extension was announced by producers Barry Diller, David Geffen and Kate Horton.
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NYC’s Newest Margarita: Hailee Steinfeld Launches Angel Margarita: A Premium Ready-to-Drink Margarita Cocktail with Premium Beers Group
Hailee Steinfeld Launches Angel Margarita: A Premium Ready-to-Drink Margarita Cocktail with Premium Beers Group
Academy Award-nominated actress, multi-platinum recording artist, and producer Hailee Steinfeld, in partnership with Premium Beers Group, a leader within the alcohol industry in Mexico, proudly announces the launch of Angel Margarita.
Hailee Steinfeld falls in love with flavor
Hailee Steinfeld has openly expressed her love for margaritas, often sharing glimpses of her favorite citrusy cocktail on social media. Whether enjoying a classic lime margarita or experimenting with fun flavors like spicy or strawberry, she appreciates the drink’s refreshing and vibrant appeal. Her enthusiasm for margaritas perfectly complements her fun-loving personality, making it a go-to choice for celebrations and casual outings alike.
This premium ready-to-drink margarita cocktail is made with 100% Agave Tequila from the rich soil of Jalisco, Mexico.
Angel Margarita: A Premium Ready-to-Drink Margarita Cocktail
To ensure that each can offers an authentic and refreshing taste experience, Angel Margarita is then fully crafted just moments from the Agave fields.
Blending Hailee’s West Coast style with the deep Mexican roots of her co-founders Jordi Zindel and Rodrigo Hernandez, Angel Margarita will lead the category with its commitment to quality. Angel Margarita will launch with four vibrant and refreshing flavors: Lime, Grapefruit Paloma, Ranch Water, and Wild Berry.
“Margaritas have always been my go-to cocktail,
so making a ready-to-drink version with high-quality ingredients that didn’t compromise on taste was important to me,”
Hailee Steinfeld
co-founder
“After visiting the Blue Agave fields in Jalisco with my partners Jordi and Rodrigo, I was inspired by the region. I am so proud of what we have created together and cannot wait for the world to try Angel Margarita.”
In 2023, premixed cocktails were the fastest-growing spirits category in the US, valued at approximately $2.8 billion, marking a 26.8% increase year over year. Tequila was the second fastest-growing category, valued at $6.5 billion, up 7.9% yearly.
To underscore the excitement and potential of this fast-growing category, Angel Margarita has partnered with Philip Button, Founder and CEO of Seven XV Ventures and Geloso Beverage Group, one of the leading alcohol beverage manufacturers and distributors in North America. With their support, Angel Margarita will begin its launch in Southern California.
“Hailee is the perfect partner to help us share an authentic piece of our culture and redefine the ready-to-drink market through Angel Margarita with a more global audience,” said Jordi Zindel and Rodrigo Hernandez, co-founders at Angel Margarita. “We invite consumers to taste our 100% Agave Tequila premium cocktails and to experience an authentic piece of Mexico in every sip.
Stay up to date on Angel Margarita: www.angelmargarita.com / @angelmargarita
100% Tequila, 100% Angel Margarita.
Angel Margarita stands out with its high standards of craftsmanship and tradition:
- Protected Denomination of Origin sourced and manufactured in Jalisco, Mexico
- Expertly crafted high-quality ingredient list featuring 100% Agave Tequila Blanco, a blend of sparkling water, agave syrup, and natural flavors
- Each 12 oz can is 6% ABV and is gluten-free
- Available in four flavors to start: Lime, Grapefruit Paloma, Ranch Water, and Wild Berry
- Retail = $14.99 / 4-pack, $28.99 / 8-pack variety
About Hailee Steinfeld:
Academy Award-nominated actress, multi-platinum recording musician, and producer Hailee Steinfeld remains a force to be reckoned with in the entertainment industry. Her leading performance in the 2016 critically acclaimed film THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN garnered her two Critics’ Choice Award nominations and a Golden Globe nomination. Her big-screen debut was in 2010 with the Coen Brothers’ film TRUE GRIT, for which she earned an Oscar nomination at only 14 years old. Up next, she will star alongside Michael B. Jordan in Warner Brothers and Ryan Coogler’s latest film, SINNERS. The supernatural action horror-thriller is set to release globally on April 18, 2025.
About Premium Beers Group:
With over 3 decades of experience, Premium Beers Group has innovated and revolutionized the alcohol category in Mexico. PBG was the first company in Mexico to import 100% malt beers from Europe and introduce craft beer and non-alcoholic beer. Premium Beers Group is the benchmark for excellence and a leader within the premium alcohol category.
About Geloso Group:
A leader in the innovation and development of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, Geloso Group manufactures and distributes premium malt beverages, wines, ciders, beers, and spirits. Geloso Group is a valued supplier and trusted partner recognized for its professionalism and commitment to quality, service, and marketing.
Thanksgiving in NYC: the perfect stuffing bread DOES exist – and it’s… [Recipe here]
This Thanksgiving in NYC, the perfect stuffing bread DOES exist – and it’s brioche. As in St Pierre Brioche Thanksgiving Stuffing
No Thanksgiving spread is complete without a hearty stuffing. While add-ins are a matter of preference, choosing the right bread is crucial. One underrated choice is eggy, rich brioche – and with St Pierre Bakery, you don’t need to go to France to get it.
Thanks to its butter and egg content, St Pierre’s Brioche Loaf provides the perfect balance of crisp toastiness while remaining soft and creamy inside, while its lightly sweet flavor adds a decadent quality that can still lean savory. Attached below is an approachable recipe for stuffing allowing for all the craveable crunch for the whole family with minimal effort required.
St Pierre Brioche Thanksgiving Stuffing
By @BrandiMilloy
Ingredients
1 loaf St. Pierre Brioche Bread
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 medium onion, diced
3/4 cup celery, diced
3/4 cup carrots, diced
1 cup mushrooms, diced
2 large eggs
1 tbsp. fresh rosemary, chopped
3 sprigs fresh thyme, just the leaves
1 tbsp. fresh sage, chopped
1 small apple (granny smith works well), peeled and diced
Salt and pepper
Directions
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Preheat oven to 350 F. Cut brioche bread into 1” cubes and bake for about 10-15 minutes until toasted.
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Meanwhile, into a pot over medium high heat add butter until melted. Add onion, celery and carrots and cook until everything starts to soften, about 7 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook for 2 minutes longer. Remove from heat and set aside.
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Into a bowl whisk together the eggs, herbs, apples, mushrooms, and salt and pepper. Add your cooked vegetables and mix to combine.
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Pour mixture on top of toasted bread and stir to combine. Bake stuffing for about 45 minutes. If your stuffing starts to get too brown, cover until finished baking. Enjoy!
As America’s favorite brioche brand, St Pierre’s products are widely available via grocery stores nationwide as well as Walmart.
The Rise of Mushroom Coffee: A New Era in Health-Conscious Brewing
In today’s health-focused culture, where wellness transcends mere goals to become a lifestyle, mushroom coffee is emerging as a leading trend. This innovative beverage combines the classic energizing effects of coffee with components often linked to the reputed benefits of medicinal mushrooms. Such a blend makes mushroom coffee a more mindful, health-oriented option for daily consumption, resonating especially with those who weave wellness into their daily routines.
Image courtesy of Freepik
The uniqueness of mushroom coffee lies in its ability to enhance the usual coffee experience by potentially offering additional benefits. For those who find regular coffee too acidic, mushroom coffee presents a more stomach-friendly option. Additionally, it incorporates adaptogenic mushrooms, which are believed to help the body better manage stress. This attribute makes mushroom coffee especially enticing to wellness enthusiasts and those seeking a natural way to support their body’s stress response.
The Rise of Mushroom Coffee, Image Courtesy of Freepik
Finding a coffee that delivers on both taste and health promises can be a daunting task. Leading the initiative is More.Longevity & Wellbeing with its Coffee Superfood Blends. These products are meticulously developed, selecting each ingredient for its quality and scientific backing, ensuring they contribute effectively to the blend. Flavors such as Salted Caramel Vanilla and Mocha are designed to mask the natural earthiness of mushroom, making the beverage more enjoyable while enhancing its appeal. The addition of adaptogens and essential vitamins in the blends aims to support overall health by boosting immunity, enhancing energy, and improving mental clarity.
The Rise of Mushroom Coffee, Image Courtesy of More.Longevity & Wellbeing
The company’s commitment to radical transparency ensures that consumers receive a product free from unnecessary fillers and additives, affirming a respect for consumer health and environmental sustainability. This level of honesty and ecological consideration is becoming increasingly important to consumers who prefer products that are both healthy and environmentally conscious.
As the trend continues to carve a niche within the beverage market, consumers are presented with expanding choices. It’s no longer just about picking a brand; it involves selecting a philosophy and a level of quality that resonates with personal health values and taste preferences. The coffee not only invites coffee lovers to rethink their daily mug but also serves as a gateway to a more mindful and intentional morning routine.
Image Courtesy of Freepik
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Final 8 Weeks to See THE SHARK IS BROKEN on Broadway – Must Close Nov 19
Final 8 Weeks to See THE SHARK IS BROKEN on Broadway, Must Close Nov 19
Audiences only have 8 weeks left to see the critically acclaimed comedy that has been making a splash on Broadway, THE SHARK IS BROKEN, playing at the Golden Theatre (252 West 45th Street).
Starring Alex Brightman as Richard Dreyfuss, Colin Donnell as Roy Scheider, and Ian Shaw portraying his father Robert Shaw, who played “Quint” in JAWS, the strictly limited 16-week engagement of THE SHARK IS BROKEN must end Sunday, November 19, 2023. Co-written by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon, THE SHARK IS BROKEN is the Olivier Award-nominated comedy that imagines what happened on board “The Orca” when the cameras stopped rolling during the filming of Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster, JAWS.
“A WILD RIDE WORTH TAKING!” –ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
“A LYRICAL, MOVING, COMEDY-DRAMA. THE TENSION, HUMOR, DEPTH, SILLINESS, AND HORROR COME IN LIKE WAVES.” – ASSOCIATED PRESS
“WITTY AND SMART WITH THREE TERRIFIC PERFORMANCES.” – DAILY BEAST
“SO VIVID YOU CAN ALMOST SMELL THE SALT AIR.” – DEADLINE
FADE IN: The open ocean, 1974. Filming on JAWS is delayed…again. The film’s lead actors—theatre veteran Robert Shaw and young Hollywood hotshots, Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider—are crammed into a too-small boat, entirely at the mercy of foul weather and a faulty mechanical co-star. Alcohol flows, egos collide, and tempers flare on a chaotic voyage that just might lead to cinematic magic…if it doesn’t sink them all.
Directed by Guy Masterson, THE SHARK IS BROKEN has scenic and costume design by Duncan Henderson, lighting design by Jon Clark, sound design and original music by Adam Cork, video design by Nina Dunn, and casting by Jim Carnahan Casting. Rounding out the company of THE SHARK IS BROKEN are understudies Peter Bradbury, Stephen Dexter, and Coby Getzug.
Tickets for THE SHARK IS BROKEN are available at Telecharge.com (212.239.6200) and at the John Golden Theatre box office (252 West 45th Street). Tickets range from $59 – $175 (including $2 facility fee).
The playing schedule for THE SHARK IS BROKEN is as follows: Tuesday – Friday at 7pm, Saturday at 8pm, with matinees on Wednesday and Saturday at 2pm, and Sunday at 3pm.
THE SHARK IS BROKEN on Broadway is produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, Scott Landis and GFour Productionsin association with Tulchin Bartner Productions, Eilene Davidson Productions, LD Entertainment, No Guarantees, Jane Bergère, Richard Batchelder, Larry Magid, Theatre Tours International LTD, Shooting The Breeze, Cue To Cue Productions/Jamie deRoy, Marc Goldman/Richard & Claudia Beeny, Jill Lenhart/Yara Shoemaker Couture, Moellenberg/Hornos, Pinnacle Productions/Bill Hanney, and Jesse Singer/Matthew Levy.
For more information, visit TheSharkIsBroken.com
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High Line Art Annc’s 2022 High Line Channels Featuring works by Kevin Jerome Everson, Ilana Harris-Babou, Jasmina Cibic, Cheng Ran
High Line Art announces 2022 season of exhibitions for High Line Channels Featuring works by Kevin Jerome Everson, Ilana Harris-Babou, Jasmina Cibic, Cheng Ran
High Line Art announces the 2022 season of exhibitions for High Line Channels—an ongoing series of video projections in the semi-enclosed passageway on the High Line at 14th Street.
High Line Channels is the only video program in a New York City park available 365 days a year, and features emerging and established artists from around the world.
Rotating every two months, this year’s program includes solo presentations by Kevin Jerome Everson, Ilana Harris-Babou, Jasmina Cibic, and Cheng Ran, as well as a thematic group exhibition, Spiritual Technology.
The films and videos presented by these artists explore a broad range of themes:
birds and our relationship to wilderness with Kevin Jerome Everson;
self-improvement and wellness culture with Ilana Harris-Babou;
how governments assert power and values through architecture with Jasmina Cibic;
the poetics of daily life in China with Cheng Ran in a US premiere, and the relationship between techno-utopias and psychic connections to the earth in Spiritual Technology.
In addition to these five exhibitions, a sixth program, the next High Line Originals commissioned film, will be announced in the coming months.
High Line Channels is organized by Melanie Kress, High Line Art associate curator.
Kevin Jerome Everson State Bird January 6–March 16, 2022 Kevin Jerome Everson (b. 1965, Mansfield, Ohio) is an artist based in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Professor of Art at the University of Virginia.
Everson, whose practice encompasses printmaking, photography, sculpture, and film, makes work that reflects gestures or tasks caused by certain conditions in the lives of working class African Americans and other people of African descent. Everson’s sculptures are often casts of everyday objects made in the factories in his Ohio hometown.
For the High Line, Everson presents four films: Brown Thrasher (2020), Mockingbird, (2020), Cardinal (2019); and The Foothills of the Allegheny Plateau (2019). The films begin with a pair of binoculars made in the Mansfield Ohio Westinghouse factory during WWII (where the artist was briefly employed) that Everson cast in bronze and rubber, rendering them useless. Everson staged the films in Georgia, Mississippi, and Ohio (the first three films are named for those places’ state birds), inviting family members to “look” for birds with the props. Everson limits these films to the extreme foreground, denying viewers any clarity as to the exact place of filming. Presented on the High Line from winter into early spring, the exhibition brings brightness to winter days in the park and ushers us into the season when the birds start to sing again in New York and the park comes alive.
Ilana Harris-Babou Help Yourself March 17–May 11, 2022 Ilana Harris-Babou (b. 1991, Brooklyn, New York) is an artist living and working in Brooklyn. Harris-Babou is known for her videos that parody reality television tropes such as cooking and home-improvement shows, and star her and her mother, Sheila Harris. Across her videos and sculptures, she focuses on “self-improvement” and how aspirations for health and wellness become framed as moral decisions in contemporary culture. Especially in Harris-Babou’s most recent work, she shifts her frame to question how inequality in the US is presented as a failure of personal decision-making and commitments to wellness.
For the High Line, Harris-Babou shares four films: In Cooking with the Erotic (2016), the artist and her mother use real food, art materials, and construction materials to offer tutorials for absurd concoctions. Finishing a Raw Basement (2017) is filled with home-improvement buzzwords like “modern,” “transitional,” and “classic” alongside Harris’s calls for reparations. In Fine Lines (2020), Harris performs her beauty routine tutorial for a meeting with a real estate developer who is trying to buy her Brooklyn home. For Leaf of Life (2021) Harris-Babou interviewed her sister about her experience working as a disillusioned health-care professional, as well as diet and wellness practices following the popular health guru, herbalist, and healer Dr. Sebi.
Jasmina Cibic Halls of Power July 7–September 14, 2022 Jasmina Cibic (b. 1979, Slovenia) works in film, sculpture, performance, and installation to explore “soft power” and the ways that governments use state-sanctioned culture—dance, music, painting, and architecture—to communicate certain principles and aspirations. She begins her projects in archives, researching moments in history through what she calls “historical readymades”: speeches, government meeting minutes, architectural plans, or even dances or songs that reflect government values. Her artworks often focus on how Modernist architecture has been used to establish various state identities, particularly during moments of ideological and political crises.
On the High Line, Cibic shares three films. In The Pavilion (2015), five dancers assemble an architectural model that merges two buildings created to house patriarchal desire: the pavilion the Kingdom of Yugoslavia built for the 1929 Barcelona EXPO and the unrealized house for iconic performer Josephine Baker designed by Austrian architect Adolf Loos. Nada: Act II (2017) restages famed Hungarian composer Béla Bartók’s 1924 pantomime ballet The Miraculous Mandarin, as selected by Yugoslavia to represent its new political and aesthetic direction at the 1958 Brussels EXPO. State of Illusion (2018) posits the disappearing act of a nation state— former socialist Yugoslavia—as a magician’s illusion. Taking place on the High Line, a relic of infrastructure that has become a civic monument for industrial reuse, this exhibition invites us to think about the ways that the buildings and structures around us reflect the values of those who build them.
Cheng Ran Chung Kuo (Ck2k2x) September 15–November 9, 2022 Cheng Ran (b. 1981, Inner Mongolia, China) lives and works in Hangzhou, China. He is best known for his poetic films and videos that describe specific places and the experience of living in them. Cheng staged some of his earliest video works in his apartment, on the streets of Amsterdam, on a car ride through Iceland, telling grand truths through the mundane poetry of everyday life. His works have since expanded to immersive multi-channel installations and epic films that contrast historical sagas and rapid modernization. For the High Line, Cheng presents the US premiere of his feature-length film Chung Kuo (Ck2k2k) (2017–2022). The film revisits famed Italian filmmaker Michaelangelo Antonioni’s controversial documentary portrait Chung Kuno—Cina (1972). Anotioni filmed the work at the invitation of the Chinese government, but focused on the people presumed to have been at the edges of his official tour.
The final film sparked outrage among Chinese cultural critics and the general public for its failure to show an accurate portrait of the country. Cheng’s film offers a new portrait of contemporary China, opening with the question “Is this another dream?” The film comprises 100 short documentary-style videos, each ranging from a few seconds to almost one hour. Taking place among skyscrapers, farmland, and wilderness, some of the clips are staged while others are filmed from life. With this work, the artist records the present and imagines future ghosts of modernization. ART Spiritual Technology November 10, 2022–January 4, 2023 Spiritual Technology features three artists exploring how relations between spirituality and technology shift over time, including links between science, myth, belief systems, and our connection to the planet. Science fiction holds up a mirror to our potential futures and to our present. The works in this exhibition tease apart tensions between techno-utopian promises and intuitive connections to the biological world. Cannupa Hanska Luger’s (b. 1979, Standing Rock Reservation, North Dakota) We Live Future Ancestral Technologies Entry Log (2019) is an Indigenous science fiction film wherein two figures perform land-based rituals, wearing regalia that mutes the senses. The film describes a mass exodus from earth by those who destroyed much of it, and those remaining behind to repair it. Ursula Mayer’s (b. 1970, Ried im Innkreis, Austria) Atom Spirit (2016) is also set in the near future, one of increasing biomedical innovation. Made with individuals from the LGBT community in Trinidad and Tobago, the work follows a group of evolutionary geneticists creating a cryogenically frozen arc of DNA from all forms of life on the islands. In Suzanne Treister’s (b. 1958, London, England) HFT The Gardener (2015), Hillel Fisher Traumberg is a stock trader who experiences hallucinogenic states while observing high-frequency trading graph patterns.
Deep research into psychoactive drugs converts Traumberg into a technoshamanic outsider artist, connecting psychoactive plant names with companies in the Financial Times Global 500 in a search for the true nature of consciousness.
ABOUT HIGH LINE ART
Founded in 2009, High Line Art commissions and produces a wide array of artwork, including site-specific commissions, exhibitions, performances, video programs, and a series of billboard interventions. Led by Cecilia Alemani, the Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director & Chief Curator of High Line Art, and presented by the High Line, the art program invites artists to think of creative ways to engage with the unique architecture, history, and design of the park, and to foster a productive dialogue with the surrounding neighborhood and urban landscape. For more information about High Line Art, please visit thehighline.org/art.
ABOUT THE HIGH LINE
The High Line is both a nonprofit organization and a public park on the West Side of Manhattan. Through our work with communities on and off the High Line, we’re devoted to reimagining public spaces to create connected, healthy neighborhoods and cities. Built on a historic, elevated rail line, the High Line was always intended to be more than a park. You can walk through gardens, view art, experience a performance, enjoy food and beverage, or connect with friends and neighbors—all while enjoying a unique perspective of New York City. Nearly 100% of our annual budget comes through donations. The High Line is owned by the City of New York and we operate under a license agreement with NYC Parks.
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Chilli No 5 Wants their Super Health, Super Flavor ‘Sauce of Life’ on your Next Meal
Chilli No 5 Wants their Super Health, Super Flavor ‘Sauce of Life’ on your Next Meal with an unmistakable spicy hit, combined with superfoods & health supplements.
Providing the flavorful gourmet vegan chilli sauces & gift sets using the most natural & healthy ingredients.
Chilli No 5 Brings ‘Superfood Sorcery’ and Big Flavor
Delivering the best range of your favorite international flavors of chilli, marinades and BBQ hot sauces.
Co-founder Rumble Romagnoli joined me for a conversation about food, family, making chilli healthier and bringing their award-winning chilli sauce to the masses.
Chilli No. 5 Co-founder Rumble Romagnoli
The below conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Find the full, un-edited conversation at our YouTube channel.
When you think about hot sauce, can you tell us about a celebration or a memory, something in life that inspired you to get so excited about hot sauce?
Rumble Romagnoli: Yeah when we’re smaller and we’re in the kitchen, it’s such a magical experience, isn’t it?
I had a real Italian Nonna so an Italian grandmother who always had bubbling pots and pastas and, Mules and fish and meat. My mother and my sister; so great moments as a child cooking in the kitchen and then out on the dining table with all the family.
It was great and now I love cooking and it makes me really relaxed. Just zoning out, cooking for the family, growing my own vegetables, chilies and then gathering around tables with friends and family just to enjoy. And that’s really where this all started.
What does day to day life look like for you. How did you decide to split up some of that time with a hot sauce endeavor?
Rumble Romagnoli: You remember COVID wasn’t really a nice time for anyone. We were there in a small apartment with lots of small children. It was chaos.
We couldn’t see our friends. We couldn’t see our family. They were all over the world and it was desperate times. So I suppose setting up Chili No. 5 was all about this kind of wanting to get back together with people enjoying moments and being together, sharing and getting fresh, healthy food and not lining up in the supermarket.
Chilli No 5 Brings ‘Superfood Sorcery’ and Big Flavor
A lot of chefs who I was very friendly with all had lost their jobs. I was like, Hey, can you make sauce? They’re like, yeah, of course I can. So that’s how it all started.
And we started trying out new flavors and we love world cooking. So that’s how Chilli No 5 started.
From your Chilli expert point of view, what should someone look for on a label that lets us know this is a quality chilli sauce?
Rumble Romagnoli: I think you guys are better at it than us to be fair. You’re fanatics; incredible.
I’m not a real expert. I just love creating great food for my family and friends. And we’ve tried to make… The best world hot sauces but they’re not going to blow your head off. It’s not really a hot sauce. They are chilli sauces.
Chilli No 5 variety of flavors
What I think you should be looking for on the bottle is: great ingredients, as many as you can get. No numbers, no coloring, no baddies.
I’m looking for just superfoods and anything that’s gonna make me glow.
In my world, when I think of chili sauce and hot sauces, I don’t always think of superfoods.
Tell me a little bit about where the idea came from to so strongly cross over superfoods with chili.
Rumble Romagnoli: I love spice and tingling on my tongue and that kind of rush you get from that spice and hot. The hot sauce or the flakes or the chili oil. My wife loves to be healthy. Happy wife, happy life they say, so I just combined.
I was doing something more spicy and she says, why don’t you put some good stuff in there? And I’d been reading a lot about Guana ginseng, maca; and all of these are in our sources. These are natural supplements that you buy in the shop. You have some of that and it really picks you up, increases your concentration, which I need for long days. I need more energy. I’m getting older. So I was like, hey let’s just put them in the hot sauce and then you got the best of both worlds. So that’s the superfood sauce or superfood sorcery we like to say.
That was all my wife’s doing to be honest.
I feel like a lot of chilli sauces are just gunk. When I think superfoods, I think health. Is your Chilli No 9 a health food?
Rumble Romagnoli: Absolutely. I’ll pick out one of these bottles.I wouldn’t say a healthy hot sauce. I would say a hot sauce full of healthy ingredients because you never know there are some sugars in here and you never know what people will find healthy or not healthy.
But we’ve got in this Jamaican jerk, which is great on a barbecue chicken as a marinade as a condiment as a barbecue sauce. We’ve got fresh red onions, fresh spring onions. Chilli No 9 chili. Fresh chilies, which are all really healthy for you. There’s ginger. There’s garlic. There’s lemon. There’s lime. There’s agave syrup.
We tried to tone down the sugar but keep it a little bit sweet, apple cider vinegar, we’ve got, extra virgin olive oil. It goes on black garlic, thyme, nutmeg, allspice, black pepper, guarana, maca, Ginseng, l arginine. It doesn’t stop. That is packed to the rims, full of healthy ingredients.
We’ve tried to put the healthiest ingredients we could find and make it as tasty as possible using these ingredients and authentic to Jamaica and their jerk sauce.
It’s a sauce packed full of healthy superfood antioxidant ingredients and that’s maybe why it’s winning all these awards for taste.
Because bottom line is it has to taste nice before being healthy.
Nobody wants a science flavored chili. So I agree with that. Let’s talk about some of your favorite flavors.
Rumble Romagnoli: It’s hard because we have over 15 sources. But one of my favorites which you’d probably love as well is the Mexican Fury. My sister lives in Guadalajara in Mexico. She left the UK and went all around South America and ended up finding a lovely guy and settled down there.
Mexican food is fantastic. It’s just really great. Full of flavors and all sorts of different ingredients that we can’t grow in the UK or in Europe. You guys have got such great weather down there in the South, Miami, Florida. Texas, Mexico between the South of the U. S. and the North of Mexico.
So you’ve got the jalapenos which are just incredible. We’ve got all of these beautiful chilies, the habanero come up with an automatically smoky flavor when mixed with the red peppers, the tomatoes, the red onions. They fuse this on the palate to really pair very well with chicken, prawns, tacos, burritos or even egg for breakfast or pancakes.
The Mexican Fury is a really good one. We won 16 awards for different sauces. I love chipotle, anything smoky in our Louisiana barbecue. We’ve tried to tone down the sugar, add a bit of cognac whiskey, bourbon whiskey. We’ve added the classic American ingredients in there to make a kind of healthy style Louisiana barbecue.
Then the harissa is a great one. It’s really popular. it’s North African full of caraway seeds, cumin seeds, olive oil, lots of of incredible deep ingredients that really sit on the back of the tongue. There’s lots of ingredients there that kind of bring your food to life.
We want to bring life and energy into a barbecue situation, dinner with granny, breakfast before work, sandwich on the bench in Manhattan.
Tell us a little bit about the competitions you’ve entered.
Rumble Romagnoli: We were only a year old and we’d come up with these sauces and we’d thought they were good. The founder Chef Colin and then we had a team of chefs working in our London kitchen and our South of France kitchen and we entered the Great Taste Awards.
These are quite big awards in the UK but it’s international awards where all kind of fine foods, gourmet foods are tested by panels of hundreds of judges. It’s quite a strict competition.
So first year we came in and we won seven stars for 11 products. We’re very happy. It was incredible. The Jamaican jerk really got a good one. The heavenly Harissa came in very well. Our chilli oil called Pizza Pizzazz.
Our chili flakes are all fresh and lovely coming from all sides of the world. Carolina Reaper, the Scorpion, the Habanero, the Ghost, the Number 5 chili from India.
We watched and read all of the judges’ comments and we’re so thankful that they really detailed about acidity, balance, flavor structures.
Then we reworked it. We played around with ingredient quality, we changed vinegars slightly, the cooking process. We started baking the vegetables, the peppers, the onions, the red onions. The tomatoes really started getting more flavor. We put in a bit of olive oil at the start to get the flavors moving around.
Then we came in this year with 13 awards out of 16. With our 7, that makes 16 of our total products have won awards by the Great Taste Awards.
We want to create the best chilli sauces on the planet. That’s my mission.
How is Chilli No 5 going to grow and evolve?
Rumble Romagnoli: It’s happening quite quickly and we have a B2C strategy and service strategy.
We want to have the most delicious sauces in every category. We’re just working on each recipe and we think if we make the best sauce, people are going to love the best sauce, and then they’re going to buy the best sauce.
A bit like Apple, just make the best products and people just keep buying them We’re getting into big stores in the UK, placements in Monaco.
We are in lots of great high end butchers, delicatessens and it’s going really well.
So we’ve got this B2B strategy. We need to impress the professionals. We’ve impressed the people who love healthy lifestyle, love delicious sauce, gourmet. But now we have to impress the industry.
Obviously coming to America is the big move.
Tell us all the ways we can learn more about Chili No. Tell us your website, social media.
Rumble Romagnoli: The website is the big one, Chili No.5. Shop us on Etsy. Follow us on instagram, Facebook, YouTube.
We’re also quite present for hot sauce gift sets. We do five or six incredible hot sauce gift sets which are collections of the sauces. And we’ve got mini little minis and you can make your own you can personalize because we’ve got 15 sauces.
We’re very big at Christmas. Very big at Father’s Day, Thanksgiving and we will send the sauces over to you guys in the states. No problem. If anything breaks, if anything’s damaged, we will refund you and resend you the sauce you ordered because that’s the least we can do.
