Unjaring Fart Starters, Ring Stingers and Ass Blasters pickled onions

¡Ahoy hoy, Pickle Fam! And a hearty welcome to any passing chilli¹ enthusiasts joining us. If you're searching for hot pickled onions that'll give your taste buds a proper workout, you've come to the right place. I've just unjarred three increasingly spicy offerings from The Funky Food Co: Fart Starters, Ring Stingers, and the magnificently named Ass Blasters pickled onions.

For those unfamiliar with my "unjaring" videos, they're essentially a cross between an unboxing video and a blind taste test. I open and try pickled onions for the first time on camera, giving you my immediate, unfiltered reaction. No preparation, no second takes, just me, a pickle fork, and whatever consequences follow.

The Chilli Pickled Onion Lineup

All three jars contain silver skin onions pickled in malt vinegar with crushed red chillies. The difference, as far as I can tell, is simply the amount of chilli. More chilli equals more heat. Simple enough, you'd think.

The Fart Starters are the entry-level option – pickled onions with a gentle chilli kick that won't frighten off the uninitiated. The Ass Blasters step things up a notch with a more assertive heat. And the Ring Stingers? Well, the name rather gives the game away, doesn't it?

The Tasting Process (And Why Spacing Matters)

I quickly realised I couldn't just plough through all three jars one after another. The cumulative effect of chilli-pickled onions would completely obliterate my palate, rendering any meaningful comparison impossible. So I filmed the video in three parts, with a decent gap between each tasting. I had cold milk and strong cider on hand – the former for emergency chilli relief, the latter because... well, because it was there.

The Fart Starters were pleasantly surprising. Quite sweet (there's sugar in the ingredients), with a fairly mild burn. You know you're eating something with chillies in, but it's nowhere near painful. A solid introduction to spicy pickled onions for anyone who's been living on Branston's offerings.

The Ring Stingers delivered a proper vinegary hot chilli attack. Significantly hotter than the Fart Starters, with that real punch you want from a chilli-pickled onion. Still bearable, but you'd struggle to eat more than two or three in quick succession.

Then came the Ass Blasters. And this is where things got interesting.

The Great Chilli-to-Eye Incident

Between tastings, my eye started itching. Without thinking – and this is crucial – I scratched it. With the same hand I'd been using to handle jars covered in chilli vinegar.

Do not, under any circumstances, scratch your eye after handling chilli products until you've thoroughly washed your hands. The pain is immediate, intense, and entirely self-inflicted. The eye patch I wore for the third tasting was for comedic effect, but the pain was very real indeed.

The Hotness Rating Cock-Up

Here's where I completely ballsed things up. In the video, fuelled by strong cider and residual chilli burn, I managed to get the heat rankings completely wrong. I suggested the Fart Starters might be the hottest, which is categorically bollocks.

The correct order, from mildest to hottest, is:

1. Fart Starters – Entry level, good chilli hit
2. Ass Blasters – Next level up, proper heat
3. Ring Stingers – The ones for chilli enthusiasts

I've added on-screen text corrections to the video, but I'm leaving my confused rambling in because it's a perfect demonstration of what happens when you combine alcohol, capsaicin, and a 53-year-old man with ADHD.

What's Next?

The Funky Food Co also make something called Great Balls of Fire, which I assume sits somewhere beyond Ring Stingers on the Scoville scale of regret. I'll be picking up a jar soon for another unjaring video.

This isn't a full review – that'll come once I've worked my way through more of each jar and can give a proper assessment. For now, I can say these are all decent chilli pickled onions that deliver exactly what their increasingly alarming names promise.

If you're into pickled onions or have a weird fascination with watching middle-aged men make questionable food choices on the internet, hit like and subscribe on YouTube, or give the video a heart and follow me on TikTok. You can find more of my pickled onion nonsense at on this website.

And remember: wash your hands before touching your face. Trust me on this one.

¹ - Apparently, "Chilli" with two Ls and "Chili" with one L are both acceptable spelling when referring to the hot pepper. Which is just as well seeing as I appear to have used both across this post and the video. The word "chile", without the capital C, is also used, mostly by Hispanic Americans.