Red Dog Chillies creators chose to tackle a different crop
This couple have switched from traditional crops to something with a bit of kick.
ABOUT four years ago, Jude Hannah and Neville Tonkin found a way to add more spice to their life.
“I had been living in the States and loved Mexican food and in particular jalapeños,” says Jude from their 17ha property at Fernihurst, 42km northeast of Wedderburn.
“I said, ‘let’s put a couple of jalapeño bushes in’.
“Nev said, ‘oh no, I hate hot stuff’. We put them in and they just grew and grew. I couldn’t pick them quick enough.
“Then we were sitting in the back here and I said, ‘why don’t we turn that area behind the house and have a go at chillies?’ And that’s kind of how it all started.”
Now, the couple have about 2000 chilli and pepper plants, mainly habaneros and jalapeños, on less than half a hectare. They sell a range of fresh and bottled products under their brand, Red Dog Chillies. The “Red Dog” was Neville’s red Kelpie, Lilly. She has since died, but Baz is carrying on the tradition, although Baz’s daughter Milly, as a black and tan Kelpie, defies the colour scheme somewhat.
The new crop is a big departure from the traditional cereals, wheat and sheep that Neville had run on the farm for roughly 20 years.
“It creates both an interest and a little bit of a joke for people,” admits Jude. “I like pushing the boundaries a bit, it’s fun.”
While Red Dog Chillies is only a few years old, Jude and Neville’s story started decades ago when they went to school together in Wedderburn, and even dated each others’ friends.
Just like Neville, Jude had also grown up on a farm, but went into a career that included retail design and marketing, and she moved to the US in her mid-30s.
It was her mother’s death that caused Jude to reassess. She said her parents had encouraged her to take on the world, and she did, working in different countries and climbing the corporate ladder. But she says her “soul felt dead”. One day she walked into her house, south of Los Angeles which overlooked the Pacific Ocean, “and went, what’s this all about?”
“Mum had 350 people at her funeral because she stayed in the area, she was part of the community,” Jude says.
“There was the respect, and in the city environment you don’t have that legacy like you do when you’re from a rural community, and that’s what was missing from my life.”
So she returned to Australia to be closer to her dad, and fate intervened. She ran into Neville, who invited her out for dinner. The reunion turned into a romance.
“I’d always said I would never return to the country, and I always say to people never say never, because it will happen,” laughs Jude.
Both Jude and Neville work during the week — Jude with LEAD Loddon Murray, Neville as a contract farmer — but on weekends you will find them picking chillies and peppers, while Jude will be “up to my elbows in sauces or pickled jalapeños or dehydrating chillies for chilli powder and chilli flakes”.
They make three peri peri sauces: an original sauce with red habaneros, red capsicum and lemon zest; one with charred pineapple, yellow habaneros and yellow capsicum; and one that makes use of the peaches from trees on the property.
“I said to Nev if we’re going to go into sauces, I want to make sure people get great flavour and then they get the after-burn, not burn me first and then I can’t taste anything else,” Jude says.
They sell all three variations, as well as pickled jalapeños (375g, or 750g), dried cayenne chilli flakes, cayenne pepper and dried habaneros. They attend Melbourne farmers markets, and also have local stockists.
And last week, Jude says she also bought a smoker, and she plans to start making chipotle.
She says they have deliberately steered away from growing any super-hot chillies because it was only a small market.
“Jalapeños is the easy entry into market because most people are used to it on a Mexicana pizza or whatever. Then it is just slowly educating people around (chillies), and that’s why peri peri was so important to us.”
Frosts are the plants’ biggest enemy, and in the future they hope to build a hothouse.
So, has Neville been converted to spicy food?
“Oh, god yes,” says Jude.
“Here is the tip about hot. People who grew up on them have been introduced at an early age, so their bodies have adapted.
“I’ve had a little bite of a ghost (a very hot pepper) and it was like, oh no, that’s not enjoyable ... I want it where it’s got a nice flavour and a nice burn.”
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