Het Hageland, the wine country between Leuven and Diest in Vlaams-Brabant, runs on Hagelandse wijn pressed off its iron-rich slopes and the dairy-and-grain farms along the Demer. Happy Hatter Hot Sauce, a hand-made one-person kitchen in Aarschot run by Wim Daans, has taken silver in Asian Style Chili Sauce with Bombay at the European Hot Sauce Awards 2026 (heatawards.eu), Europe's flagship hot sauce competition.
Happy Hatter Hot Sauce is run as a hand-made one-person kitchen in Aarschot, with Wim Daans handling the recipes and the cooking in small batches with fresh ingredients. Bombay is built from yellow Habaneros and fresh fruit on top of the Belgian-style curries Wim ate as a kid. A silver placement in Asian Style Chili Sauce, judged blind against producers from across the continent, puts that approach inside Europe's top tier.
Nathan Austin on Bombay:
"Bombay reads as a curry-leaning hot sauce that takes the Belgian curry tradition Wim grew up on and sharpens it: a fruit lift up front, the slow-warm of yellow Habanero behind it, with the rounded sweetness of a curry sauce rather than the chili-forward bite of a typical Asian Style hot sauce. The kind of bottle that suits chicken curry, a samosa or a chip cone." – Nathan Austin, Tasting Editor, Republic of Heat
Bombay (silver, Asian Style Chili Sauce): handmade in small batches in Aarschot with fresh ingredients, the heat carried by yellow Habanero peppers and a fruit lift on top. Built off the Belgian-style curries Wim ate growing up, with enough body to sit on chicken, samosas or a chip cone.
"We've put Aarschot on the European chili map. A small kitchen, our own recipes, going up against producers from across the continent and coming out with a Silver in Asian Style. That's the result, and the team has earned it." – Wim Daans, Happy Hatter Hot Sauce
The European Hot Sauce Awards 2026 ran over 200 sauces from across the continent through blind tasting this year, scored on five criteria by a deliberately mixed panel of chefs, sommeliers, critics and chilli specialists. Asian Style Chili Sauce is one of the wider categories on the panel: a sauce has to declare an identity at the spice register it lands at, and read as Asian rather than reach for it.
"Asian Style is a wide net of a category and the panel can taste the difference between a sauce reaching for it and a sauce that's lived with it. Bombay landed with a real point of view, and from a one-person kitchen in Aarschot at that. EHSA exists to surface exactly that kind of result." – Neil Numb, Founder, European Hot Sauce Awards
Bombay is available from Happy Hatter Hot Sauce at happyhatterhotsauce.be. Full EHSA 2026 results across all 16 categories: heatawards.eu/results/2026?utm_source=press_release&utm_medium=press&utm_campaign=ehsa2026&utm_content=happy-hatter.
The European Hot Sauce Awards 2026 are announced ahead of the Berlin Chili Fest, 29–31 May 2026. Republic of Heat's EHSA 2026 Top 3 winner box is live at republicofheat.com/de-en/discovery-set/euhsa_top3, with further EHSA selection boxes at republicofheat.com/de-en/hot-sauce-sets.
PRESS RESOURCES Press kit (photos, logos, AI lifestyle composites credited Republic of Heat / European Hot Sauce Awards 2026): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-v6-lFTEpHi4GgI6_UMarVg4JOkYZiEw?usp=drive_link
ABOUT HAPPY HATTER HOT SAUCE Happy Hatter Hot Sauce is a hand-made one-person hot sauce kitchen in Aarschot, in the Hageland region of Vlaams-Brabant, run by founder Wim Daans. The range is built on small-batch cooking with fresh ingredients, with Bombay drawing on the Belgian-style curries Wim grew up eating. Available at happyhatterhotsauce.be.
ABOUT THE EUROPEAN HOT SAUCE AWARDS The European Hot Sauce Awards (EHSA) is the professional competition for commercially produced hot sauces in Europe, run annually since 2024 from heatawards.eu. EHSA was born out of the Berlin Chili Festival, which has run since 2019 and returns 29–31 May 2026, and became an independent competition in 2024. Over 200 sauces from producers across the continent were entered in 2026. Entries are judged blind across five criteria: aroma, heat profile, flavour, creativity and finish. The 2026 edition covers 16 categories, with Gold, Silver and Bronze medals awarded across multiple positions in each. Each category also names a Best in Category, the top Gold. EHSA is run independently of any single producer or retailer.
ABOUT REPUBLIC OF HEAT Republic of Heat is a European hot sauce subscription designed to show off the flavours coming out of Europe and help solve the distribution problem independent makers face. Founded June 2025 in Berlin by Nathan "Naga" Austin and Simon "Scoville" Gardner. The Discovery subscription delivers three handpicked craft sauces plus a spicy extra to subscribers across the EU each month. Press partner of the European Hot Sauce Awards 2026. republicofheat.com.
PRESS CONTACT Press: Republic of Heat, on behalf of European Hot Sauce Awards contact@republicofheat.com +49 176 41601284
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