The world is my garden in the search for the perfect chili pepper.
 I Like Them Hot, Hot, Hot

From OUTSIDE (June ’97), RANDY WAYNE WHITE.

At a great little marina on the island of Manga, just off Cartagena, Colombia, I discovered a pungent green chili sauce, hot but not too hot. It had the fragrance of rich vinegar and crushed pepper blooms. It was the best hot sauce I’d ever tried. Its name was Ají Amazona.

When I remarked upon the sauce, the marina’s owner, an expatriate Aussie, replied, "Pretty good stuff, isn’t it? I know the guy who makes it".

The factory was a short taxi ride away, so I went to buy a case. The proprietor, Jorge Araujo, had been in the wholesale pepper business, supplying produce to larger companies, when a "miracle" happened: an accidental cross-pollination between cayenne peppers and a local variety called pipón, which no one really wanted. The pepper that resulted was a rare specimen indeed. "It had a wonderful color like no other I’d ever seen," said Araujo. Eventually he christened this accidental hybrid The Amazona, for the region where he believes all chilies originated.