At 53 years old and unemployed, the industrial engineer Julio Estalella had a revelation. In his case, it was not the Virgin telling him to build a hermitage in a lost field: it occurred to him to make spicy dressings and set up his own company to make them thanks to TV and YouTube. “About five years ago I saw a documentary of the program How to do it in which they showed the process of making the Tabasco sauce “recalls Estalella.” Just when they explained that it is mixed with apple cider vinegar for 17 days, I thought: ‘With sherry vinegar it must be better’. That was stored in my brain and I continued with my work ”.
When in 2019 he was fired from Abengoa, this Sevillian came across a YouTube video in which they taught how to prepare homemade Tabasco. Bang. Succession of flashes: Discovery Max, chili peppers, spicy, Sherry. That idea that arose out of boredom and the sofa made sense some time later, and today its brand, Stillness, produces in Seville three sauces and three pastas that have a characteristic that differentiates them from other spicy dressings: the use of vinegars and Sherry wines such as Oloroso or Amontillado.
Quietud took its first steps two years ago, when Julio began testing at home. “I went to El Corte Inglés, bought some peppers and put them to ferment in my kitchen. I was rehearsing recipes until on February 11, 2020, I invited a group of friends to lunch and suggested they taste various sauces from the market and those that I had made. They all said they preferred mine ”, recalls Estalella, who assures that she has never worked in anything related to gastronomy.
At the end of the dinner, and with several friends convinced to become partners, Julio had already decided his future job: making his own hot sauces using these two products from the Jerez-Xérès-Sherry Denomination of Origin. That occurrence in front of the television was closer to being bottled up.
But the pandemic arrived
On March 12, 2020, they already had the necessary money and only the notary’s signature was missing, but the coronavirus delayed the plans. “I took advantage of the confinement to find the design of the labels, that of the cans, the type of cap, dispenser, etc.” When the pandemic passed, they finally found a factory in Marinaleda that made available the necessary machinery to make the recipe.
Once the restrictions were relaxed in May, they went through six months of tests in which they made up to 12 different versions of what was to be the first product to be launched on the market: Sosegada, a Lousiana-style fermented sauce made with bird’s-eye chili peppers, bitter orange peel, salt, sherry vinegar and odorous. In November 2020, several years after the cathodic disclosure, the first batch went on sale.
But La Sosegada was not alone: in that first batch, Serena and Melosa, two spicy pasta, were also sold. “One of my partners was the director of R&D in biotechnology at Abengoa. When he saw the manufacturing process, he said that the by-product that was left when we filtered the sauces didn’t have to be thrown away. That is why Serena was born, which is crushed pepper marinated in vinegar and fragrant ”, explains the manager of Quietud. They also decided to add honey to that solid mixture to create a sweet chili: the Melosa.
The Jerez, essential
Julio and his partners were clear from the beginning that vinegar and sherry wines should be the recognizable ingredients of the brand. His presence was and is non-negotiable. “In the beginning I talked a bit with Carlos Carvajal, from Salsas Sierra Nevada, but I had a different idea, I wanted to make them out of vinegar. I thought that what was truly different was to include them in a spicy dressing and make them show up in the final result, ”says Estalella.
According to this engineer, the touch that these Andalusian wines give – in his case from the Jerez winery González Rico– The spicy is very particular: “The oloroso or the amontillado provide an aroma and a special presence, with them you elevate a product in a category”. And they are also in line with the company’s own philosophy, which is not called Quietud by chance: their sauces are calm, moderately hot, far from those that you need to drink half a cooperative of milk to appease the burning in your mouth. “We like to position ourselves with the flavor as a whole rather than with a very aggressive spice so that everyone can enjoy it,” he asserts.
Precisely because of this search to add other flavors to the spicy, they opted for chili peppers that were not very invasive. Well, for that reason and by chance, it is true: “The bird’s eye was the one I found in El Corte Inglés when I went to buy peppers the first time. There was habanero and jalapeños and I didn’t want to buy them, “says the manager of this company, who adds that, in addition, he cannot make sauces with green jalapeño because when mixing it with the bronze of the sherry vinegar” it comes out of a color that you do not buy. nobody”. A few months after the appearance of the first bottles, habanero and chipotle joined the list, although to prepare other sauces. Because the range of products offered by Quietud does not end in the Calm, the Melosa and the Serena.
Mmore spicy
“Another of the partners, who works in the commercial sector, commented that whoever buys a sauce not only gets one, he takes several. As several clients had told us who wanted one that was more itchy, in January 2021 we put Carbonera on the market ”, says Julio Estalella. This pasta is inspired by mole, a typical Mexican dish, as it is prepared with chipotle -dried and smoked jalapeños that they buy in Segovia-, crushed tomato, cocoa, garlic, salt, thyme and, instead of odorous, amontillado. “It is very strong and intense. Since I was doing the tests at home, it was clear to me that it would be a stronger sauce, and precisely I included amontillado because it has that character ”, clarifies this engineer from Seville.
The first times he made it in his kitchen, according to Julio, he used chocolate. And it was good, he says, but it posed a problem for him: he couldn’t control this ingredient at source. That is why he decided to bet on pure defatted cocoa from Venezuela to make this paste, the only condiment that Quietud sells that does not undergo a fermentation process.
Only a month later the Limonera and the Habanera appeared. The names are much less cryptic, so you can imagine: the first substitutes the bitter orange peel and the scent of the Sosegada with zest and lemon juice; the other is prepared the same as the original sauce, although with habaneros from Valencia and, to compensate, a little lamuyo pepper and twice as odorous.
Even in the croquettes
“When you see the supermarket shelves, you realize that it is getting more and more spicy. I think we are experiencing a change in Spain, this type of flavors is growing in our country ”, states Estalella. Proof of this, he says, is that both in the hospitality industry and at the household level there are people who add these sauces to traditional recipes. “A friend adds Habanera to salmorejo, for example, and Serena is fantastic for making a chicken marinade,” adds Julio.
Calf, in the capital Seville, is one of the restaurants that have integrated Quietud condiments into some of their dishes. “We have made a hot pepper croquette with Sosegada. Also, when we have lentils as a stew of the day, we offer it to customers who ask for vinegar, ”says Jesús Becerra, owner of this establishment in Seville. “Before I was not very hot, but I started to add it to the cockles or to the omelette at home and I realized that it had to be made known”, declares Jesús.
One year after going on the market, Quietud sauces are found in numerous gourmet bars and shops from Seville, Cádiz, Madrid or Barcelona, and can also be purchased online through your Web page. “At the moment we are not going to expand the offer of products, we only want to sell, sell and sell to consolidate the line that we have today. Although obviously we continue to think and mull over some ideas, of course”, confesses the manager. Who was going to tell that man who, on a boring afternoon in 2016, was watching Discovery Max.
In the Product of the month section we tell the story of edibles that excite us because of their quality, their taste and the talent of the people who make them. No producer has given us money, jewelry or Mercadona gift vouchers to make these items.
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