Mad Dog BBQ Sauce

Below is a press release. I don't usually post press releases, but this is about the company that makes my absolutely favorite barbecue sauce, Mad Dog. Now I love the original, and I love the spicy. The judges at competition - well they sure as hell don't. Enjoy.

BBQ Spells Success for MA Entrepreneur

Twenty years in business and 28 sauces later, Ashley Food Company, Inc. continues to beat the odds. The secret to success for entrepreneur David “Mad Dog” Ashley lies in giving customers a reason to come back for more. The original Mad Dog all natural bbq sauce kicked the company into high gear 20 year ago. Its popularity spawned the expansion into a whole family of Mad Dog sauces over the next 5, 10 and 15 year milestones. Now the #1 rated BBQ sauce by America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Magazine comes in three varieties, Original, Chipotle and Ultra Hot. Dun & Bradstreet reports, "Businesses with fewer than 20 employees have only a 9% chance of surviving 10 years." Ashley Food Company, Inc. is an exception to the rule.

Sudbury, MA (Vocus/PRWEB) December 20, 2010

In honor of the 20th anniversary of Ashley Food Company, Inc., founder David “Mad Dog” Ashley just introduced a family of three barbecue sauces featuring the ever popular, Mad Dog Original all natural bbq sauce. The original has the same, rich flavor that ranked it #1 by America's test Kitchen and Cook's Magazine. The new Chipotle Mad Dog barbecue sauce has the same heat as the original, award-winning recipe and has a distinctive, new smoky flavor. The Ultra Hot Mad Dog barbecue sauce has been enhanced with added Ghost Peppers making it one of hottest BBQ sauces ever made.

What gives Chipotle Mad Dog bbq sauce its smooth, smoky flavor are large, red ripe, dried jalapeños that are called chipotle peppers. These peppers are the last ones to be harvested so they are brown in color. They are smoked slowly over an open fire for an unmistakable taste. There are many different grades of chipotle peppers. Ashley Food Company, Inc. uses only high-grade chipotle, the finest money can buy.

When customers asked for an even hotter BBQ sauce, Ashley Food Company, Inc. delivered one of the hottest bbq sauces ever sold. To intensify the heat of Ultra Hot Mad Dog bbq sauce, the company added Bhut Jolokia otherwise known as ghost pepper. This pepper comes from India and is 400 times hotter than Tabasco sauce. Ghost peppers are certified by Guinness World RecordsTM as the world's hottest peppers.

All three varieties of Mad Dog bbq are dedicated to Ashley's good friend, Bear, the chocolate lab who appears on the new label of this family of barbecue sauces. To lock in freshness, Mad Dog bbq comes in a new, 12-ounce bottle with an unmistakable new logo.

Texas musician Lyle Lovett once compared barbecue sauce to a beautiful woman. He said “If it's too sweet, it's bound to be hiding something.” (The Texas Monthly, June 2008) David Ashley explains why Mad Dog barbecue sauces have nothing to hide. “For 20 years, our hallmark has been to provide all-natural products. We use premium, fresh ingredients and no fillers, no additives and no preservatives. We guarantee this. ”

To order Mad Dog bbq sauces, visit Ashley Food Company, Inc., call 1-800-61-SAUCE or email maddog(at)ashleyfood(dot)com.

For more information about the complete line of Mad Dog bbq and Hot Sauces created by Ashley Food Company, also visit Ashley Food Retail Store and Ashley Food Wholesale Store.

About Ashley Food Company, Inc.

As President and founder of Ashley Food Company, Inc. in Sudbury, Massachusetts, David has been creating all-natural, mouth watering, and award-winning products for two decades come January 2011. All Mad Dog creations are made in hand-measured batches and cooked to perfection. To this day, David ensures that every blend has a fresh-from-the-kettle-taste.

Ashley Food Company produces 28 sauces, from sweet with heat to lethal, including “The world's hottest hot sauce” – 357 EXTREME hot sauce; Mad Dog BBQ sauces, Mad Cat, Teriyaki Hot sauce; industrial extracts, and has recently added Envy, 357 EXTREME Wing sauce and 357 EXTREME Mustard to the line-up. Find the complete line of Mad Dog Hot Sauces and barbeque sauces created by David Ashley at Ashley Food Company, Inc.

Read more: http://www.benzinga.com/press-releases/10/12/p714676/bbq-spells-success-for-ma-entrepreneur#ixzz18iMNFLFI

The Nine Classic American Barbecue Sauces

There's a great article about the nine classic American barbecue sauces over at The Huffington Post. Take a look here.

Thanksgiving Recipes: Crandberry Sauce

This is one of the easiest recipes you'll ever find. It's simple, straight forward and delicious. This recipe puts the canned stuff to shame. This is my adaptation of the recipe for Cranberry Sauce as found in The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

• 12 oz fresh cranberries
• 1 cup water
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves (more or less to taste)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt (more or less to taste)
  

Wash the cranberries. In a pot, bring the water to boil and add the cranberries, cinnamon, and ground cloves. Boil for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep from burning. Mash the cranberry mixture with a potato masher. Cook over low heat for an additional 3 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the sugar and salt and cook for 2 minutes until the sugar is completely dissolved. Pour into a serving container and refrigerate until solid. (Usually overnight)

The photograph of cranberry sauce comes to us from A Pinch of Health - Australian Low Carb Forum

Blue Collar Bar-B-Q Sauce wins The American Royal

I just wanted to take a moment and congratulate my friends Jay and Steve Curry from Spice Wine Iron Works on thier sauce, Blue Collar Bar-B-Q winning "Best In The World at this year's American Royal"

Now that is a really big deal. The American Royal is the Super Bowl and World Series of barbecue competitions all rolled up into one. Thousands, probably tens of thousands of people compete at this event every year. For Jay and Steve to take top honors, this is an accomplishment to be very very proud of.

The Curry boys describe Blue Collar Bar-B-Q as "Thick and bold, this sauce is a great everything sauce. It works well as a great finishing sauce for any BBQ." And now they can claim it's award winning.

So if you're looking for a new "great finishing sauce for any BBQ," go out and get bottle of Blue Collar Bar-B-Q. Trust me. It's good.

BBQ Ingredients: Lea & Perrins - Thick

I usually hate it when a classic food reinvents itself. Anybody else out there remember New Coke or Coke 2? We all know how well that turned out. If it ain't broke why fix it huh?

So you can understand that I was a bit skeptical when I heard about the new Lea & Perrins - Thick. Why would they want to play with the classic and best Worcestershire sauce on the market? What the hell did they do to it to make it thick? Did they fill it with thickeners and other unnatural glop?

I checked with their marketing folks and was told that "The new Lea & Perrins Thick Classic was inspired by the original Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce, which is made using a 170-year old recipe. By blending the original Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce with ingredients such as tomato puree made from tomatoes grown from Heinz Seeds, roasted garlic and onion, we’ve achieved the thick texture and bold, yet balanced flavor, which makes the new Lea & Perrins Thick Classic perfect for dipping and topping."

So with some apprehension, I gave it a try. And I was glad I did. The new Thick Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce, tastes exactly the same as the original, but is thick like ketchup. No more thinning out your sauces!

Try it - you'll like it.

And if you're looking for a quick buck - the folks at Lea & Perrins are hosting ThatsawRAP Contest. Lea & Perrins® is searching for the ultimate “wRAP” video that compliments its new Thick Classic® Worcestershire Sauce, while paying tribute to the signature paper wrap that has graced its distinctive bottles for more than 170 years.

The winner, selected by America out of the Top 10 videos, will receive $5000 PLUS a premium prize package of Certified Angus Beef. Additional prizes include $1,000 for each of the 4-runners-up. Check it out here.

Clint - you listening?

BBQ Sauce

Let's get this out of the way, barbecue is not sauce. Barbecue is a method of slow cooking meat over low heat and smoke. You can't put "barbecue" sauce on a carrot and call it Barbecue. The sauce is just a condiment on hopefully good meat.

That being said, let's talk a little about barbecue sauce. Most Americans prefer their barbecue to be accented with some sort of barbecue sauce. According to The Praxi Group: Beef Flavor Preference Study, October 2005; funded by The Beef Checkoff, 45% of Americans want barbecue sauce on their beef.

So what's the flavor break down of the barbecue sauces?

• 31% of us want it to be smoky/hickory flavored
  
• 32% want it to be sweet (Preferred by Caucasians, women and those in North, Central and the South)
• 22% want a hot/spicy sauce (Preferred by consumers 18 to 34, Asians, Hispanics, African Americans and men)
  
• 13% want a tangy or vinegary sauce (Preferred by Caucasians, and consumers 55 and up)
  

When One Door Closes Another Opens

In my in-box today I received a distressing message; Manny and Lisa have decided to pull the plug on the production of Pit Bull Hot Sauce. Pit Bull is my absolutely favorite hot sauce and I really hate to see it disappear.

But like I said, when one door closes another opens and Manny and Lisa are looking for someone to take over the company. Here's a portion of their message...

"That's right Fans...we're closing up our Business. This summer...will be your last chance to order Pit Bull Hot Sauce from us. After 7 years of Fun and Tons of Enjoyment... we've decided to close our company. It's been a "Labor of Love"...but Pit Bull Hot Sauce has gotten too big for us to manufacture and sell. It's time to give it to someone else who can take it to the next level. We're looking for the right buyer...who will continue what we've begun. If you know of anyone...please send them our way..."

So, I'm sending people their way. If you are interested in taking over production and marketing of what is the best hot sauce out there, drop Manny an email. If you're like me and just need to stock up before it's all gone visit the website here.

BBQ Contests: Judging Brisket and Sauce at Blues, Views and BBQ

So, we're finally in the homestretch of judging at Connecticut's Views, Blues and BBQ festival. 3 categories down and one left to go; brisket. Brisket, the hardest piece of meat to get right and my least favorite of the competition meats.

At this event, every brisket box presented to my table contained slices and burnt ends. Or what may or may not have been the cook's attempt at burnt ends, as most were cubes of very chewy, but tender meat. None were particularly smokey as burnt ends tend to be. All of the slices in the boxes were on the thick side, but most were very tender.

In terms of flavors, no one entry sticks out in my mind. Two reminded me of pot roast with no noticeable smokey taste. One had an odd sauce on it that I've tasted before at other contests and in other categories. This sauce always leaves me with a strange apple cider vinegary after taste that lingers long. Little did I know it would reappear in the sauce category.

With the judging of brisket, the official KCBS part of the contest was over and we judges were asked to stay and judge a sauce category. I've never judged a sauce category before so I had some quick discussions with a couple of other judges looking for tips. My main concern was on appearance of sauce. How do you judge that? KCBS rules are not comparative judging, so you are to judge each sauce on its own merits. One judge came up with a good set of guidelines and that's what I tried to follow.

When I was told it was a sauce category, I expected that the "sauce" we were to judge would be a barbecue sauce, but no, the reps repeatedly pointed out that this was a "sauce" contest, not a BARBEQUE sauce contest. Any type of sauce was a legal entry.

They then told us how we were to judge the sauce. Sauce would be presented to us in small plastic cups with lids. We were told to take each cup, open it and judge it for appearance. Each sauce was to be judged for appearance before we could move on to taste.

For taste, we were told to break a saltine cracker in half. We were told to dip one piece of the cracker into the sauce and to taste that. Then we were instructed to dunk and swirl the other piece of cracker, taste it and then score each sauce for taste. Again, we were told to judge each sauce for taste before we could move on to the final judging criteria, tenderness.

Judging a sauce for tenderness is a kin to judging water for wetness, so the reps came up with an interesting twist on scoring the final criteria. Instead of judging for tenderness, we were told to judge each sauce against the other, to comparatively rate the sauces, based simply on which one we liked best. The top sauce was to receive a score of 9, the next 8 and so forth until the lowest rated sauce on your table would receive a 4.

I thought judging the sauces was difficult up to that point, but when asked to lay them out, for lack of a better term, in best to worst, now that was close to impossible. It wasn't that hard to pick out my favorite sauce, it was fairly difficult to pick out my least favorite sauce, and it was close to impossible to rate the sauces in between.

I was glad that my table received only bbq sauces. I know one team submitted a caramel sauce. While I would have liked to have tried it, it raised an interesting question; how do you comparatively rate a caramel dessert sauce against a vinegar bbq sauce? I don't think it can be done. It's really comparing apples to oranges.

But everyone had a good time in the end and that's all that matters.

A final note about this contest. From my point of view as a judge and from my experiences there, this was a first rate, well run event. The reps, the ever lovely, Lovelys did a great job. Talking with the cooks after the event, they told me that everything was great the entire weekend and that the organizers did a fantastic job of making them feel welcome and appreciated. I hope this becomes an annual contest. Connecticut needs one.

Diagram of the cow courtesy of Wikipedia.

Hershey’s Chocolate Barbecue Sauce

Looking for something new? How about Chocolate Barbeque Sauce? I love chocolate in cooking. From sweet desserts to savory moles to chili it just seems to enrich everything it touches.

Hershey’s Chocolate Barbecue Sauce

In a 5 quart sauce pot:

• ¼ cup chopped garlic
• 2 cups diced onion
• ½ cup Olive oil

Cook over medium heat until onions are tender.

• 4 whole lemons, squeeze in juice only
• Zest of one lemon
  
• 2 tablespoons salt
• 3 tablespoons black pepper
• 2 tablespoons paprika
• 2 tablespoons hot pepper sauce

Add items, stir in and simmer for 10 minutes.

• 8 cups ketchup
• 1 cup cider vinegar
• 4 cups Hershey’s chocolate syrup

Add items, stir in and simmer for 15 minutes. If you don't like chuncky sauce, run it through a blender before serving.

Hold on low heat. Chill in refrigerator for service at a later time. Reheat on low heat.

This was originally created by Charlie Gipe, CEC; who is Hershey's Executive Chef, but I've modifed it just a bit. I hope you enjoy!