BAND of brothers are proving that they’re hot stuff with the launch of a shop devoted entirely to the chilli.

When Sonny-boy Ward cycled all the way from Bishop Auckland to Darlington on Friday, he was expecting a warm greeting from Mat, Andrew and Mark Balcombe, owners of the town’s new Red Hot Chilli Store.

Instead, he found his visit to their shop too hot to handle, being left breathless after being bombarded with sample after sample of their spicy wares.

Mr Ward was hand-picked by the trio to try products collected from chilli growers and sauce makers from across the country, all of which are on sale at the Whessoe Road store.

He began his challenge boldly, stuffing spoonfuls of startlingly hot chilli sauce into his mouth and declaring the taste “handsome”, temporarily abandoning his strict vegan diet to enthuse over a sauce that blended honey and Carolina Reaper chillis.

However, his efforts ended with him begging The Northern Echo to turn off their cameras as he dissolved into a coughing fit, felled at the last hurdle by The Chilli Bandits’ Reap it and Weep, a sauce created by the shop’s owners and packed with some of the world’s hottest chillis.

Once he had recovered from his ordeal, Mr Ward said: “The good thing about these sauces is that the flavour is there in each one – you can really taste the differences between them but that last one finished me off.”

The Balcombe brothers insist on sourcing the majority of their unusual products from within the UK, from recommendations and from tracking the winners of chilli competitions across the country.

Their shelves are packed with sauces, kits and more unusual fare like Satan’s Spawn chilli gummy bears, infused fudge and tiny hand grenades that contain a tiny vial of an oil with a 13 million Scoville rating, enough for one drop to flavour an entire pot of curry.

The family-run venture grew from the brothers’ genuine love of chillis and is the next step for the trio who began selling on market stalls.

Mat Balcombe, 34, said: “Food is boring without a bit of spice, we love chilli, there’s nothing like this round here and people are getting adventurous with their cooking these days.

“We’ve had great feedback so far and we’re getting a lot of people coming in and challenging each other.”

For information, visit Red Hot Chilli Store on Facebook.