WAIMEA — The Salty Wahine Gourmet Hawaiian Sea Salt is not the only Kauai-based outfit earning accolades at the Fiery Food Challenge in Texas.
Lori Cardinas of Aunty Lilikoi Products in Waimea showed off the firm’s crystalline Golden Chile award, the coveted first place honor for its Passion Fruit Wasabi Mustard, Monday during a stop in Waimea town.
Cardinas, who owns and operates Aunty Lilikoi Products with her husband Tony, said this is not Aunty Lilikoi’s first appearance at the Fiery Food Challenge, and finally convinced her sister, Laura Cristobal Andersland of Salty Wahine, to enter her products for competition at the international Texas food challenge.
“Laura makes good food,” Cardinez said. “I’ve been trying to get her to consider competition for years. I’m glad she finally got to listen to her older sister. This was her first appearance at the Fiery Food Challenge.”
The Aunty Lilikoi Passion Fruit Wasabi Mustard is no stranger to awards, having won the Grand Champion honor at the Napa Valley World-Wide Mustard Competition in 2005. This year, the Passion Fruit Wasabi Mustard earned the Golden Chile award in the mustard category at the Fiery Food Challenge, a repeat performance after getting the Golden Chile in the condiments: mustard mild/medium-consumer ready category during the 2017 show.
The mustard was also declared a 2017 World Champion after earning Condiments Divisional Champion honors at the World Hot Sauce Awards in Lafayette, Louisiana during the organization’s show in July.
Other awards from Lafayette included the Aunty Lilikoi Passion Fruit Habanero Jelly getting first place honors, the Passion Fruit Kiawe BBQ Sauces, Passion Fruit Wasabi Dressing, and Passion Fruit Wasabi Teriyaki Sauce nailing second place honors. The Aunty Lilikoi website earned a first place finish in the World Hot Sauce Awards Marketing Division.
“We are so proud that our products continue to show well against companies from all over the world,” Cardenas said. “Our team does really good work.”
Since its first win in 2005, the Passion Fruit Wasabi Mustard, described as a perfect balance of sweet and spice, has become one of the firm’s top selling product.
“We develop our recipes from our customers,” Cardinas said. “When we bought the firm, there were only five recipes. Our customers come in and make suggestions and recipes that we experiment with and through trials, finally come up with our Aunty Lilikoi product.”
In addition to the Golden Chile winner, Cardinas said the Aunty Lilikoi Passion Fruit Wasabi Dressing, and the Aunty Lilikoi Passion Fruit Kiawe BBQ Sauce earned second place honors.
The Passion Fruit Wasabi Dressing took honors in the salad dressing category, and the Passion Fruit Kiawe BBQ Sauce earned a red ribbon in the BBQ sauce category.
During the 2017 competition, the kiawe BBQ sauce was a Golden Chile winner in the BBQ sauce-Mustard based, Consumer ready category. The wasabi dressing finished the 2017 show as a runner up award winner in the condiments: salad dressing-consumer ready category.
Aunty Lilikoi was established in 1990.
As a kid, we used to find the purple lilikoi and strained it through stainless steel mount. Then add sugar to the liquid then freeze it making our own natural icicle.