BIG DADDY’S ASS BURN

“Hell Goin’ In, Hell Goin’ Out”

I was at the Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Contest back in August when I first came across Big Daddy’s ASS BURN Hot Sauce. My thought was “ OK, another “anal-themed” sauce, probably with a silly label and mediocre contents.” …. Well, one taste was all it took to change my mind. This is a really good sauce with a flavor all it’s own. It’s the only sauce I can remember seeing with Thai Peppers as the main ingredient. It also has a nice balance between sweet and sour. More on that in my review.

Big Daddy and his lovely wife Becky seemed like my kind of people, as a matter of fact, they are. I’m not sure if I’ve met them before but they know a lot of the people I know. These are rock and roll people and I know the lifestyle well. The Texas Underground rock scene is fairly close knit so these are folks who would be welcome at one of my BBQ’s anytime.

While they only have one product on the market at the moment, Big Daddy & Co. are working on a couple really cool projects, one involving a very heavy musical act.

Big Daddy Trevi Interview

Tell me how you got into the business of making hot sauce.

My wife Becky and I met at work and she would hear me complain about how a lot of hot sauce tastes too vinegary and the same (this was before I was introduced to the extensive world of hot sauce I know now) and that I should come up with my own recipe. She told me I should stop talking about it and do it so we went to a local nursery and I started a pepper garden with about 12 varieties. I started playing around and Big Daddy’s Ass Burn was the fifth recipe I came up with. I made it for friends for a couple of years and everyone seemed to really like it so about two years ago we decided to make it legit and start bottling it for public consumption.

Where did the idea for “Ass Burn” come from? It seems like a pretty crazy recipe. Was drinking involved?

Yeah, I’ve always enjoyed beer and figured it’d be nice to make it part of the base. Also it’s good to have it in the kitchen while you’re cooking the sauce so it can be a little for the sauce, a little for Big Daddy, a little more for Big Daddy, etc. I decided to use St. Arnold Lawnmower beer in the sauce as it is great beer made by a local Houston microbrewery. St. Arnold makes great beers and is run by awesome folks and I wanted to help spread the word.

I like St. Arnolds beers too. Quality stuff!

This is the only sauce I’ve come across that uses Thai peppers as the main chile. Why Thai?

I freaking love Thai food and started using Thai peppers a lot in Thai cooking and realized that they worked great in sauce.

Is the co-packer you use located in Houston? Was it hard to find one that could re-create such an unusual recipe?

Yeah, we use Marquee Foods in north Houston. It was actually really easy as Dr. Al Wagner at Texas A&M recommended Terry (the owner) and after talking to him I realized he would be perfect as just about all he does is sauces and relishes.

Tell me a little about your involvement in the underground rock scene and the bands you’ve been in. Are you still playing music?

Currently I play bass in Whorehound out of Houston and still play with Drunken Thunder a couple times a year as some of the guys live in Austin and play with the High Divers. In the past I’ve played with Transmaniacon MC, Brown Paper Dog, and Whites of Their Eyes.

Big Daddy with Michael Gerald of the legendary band KILLDOZER

Every one in Austin knows about Handsome Joel but for the rest of the world tell us about the “I ::heart:: H.J. “ on your label.

Handsome Joel was one of the greatest guys to ever walk the earth. A consummate host to heavy bands coming through Austin, HJ always opened his house and heart to everyone who would play Austin and his name is holy in the heavy music scene. HJ was a huge fan of the Ass Burn and I would always bring him some whenever I played in town. HJ was tragically killed by a drunk driver in 2003. With him being Ass Burn’s first real fan I wanted to pay tribute to him on the bottle. He was a brother and we miss him dearly.

I knew Joel as well and he was always super cool, even if I was barely acquainted with him. He let me into a lot of shows for free! He’ll be missed around these parts for a long time.

Tell me about your upcoming projects like the bloody mary mix.

My wife and I got into bloody marys during a road trip through Wisconsin and when we got back home she came up with a killer recipe. Every Sunday during football season we’re at Griff’s Sports Bar in Houston watching the Steelers and Becca brings a pitcher of her Ass Burn bloody mary mix for everyone to partake as nothing’s better to take the bite off a Sunday morning hangover. We’re going to start bottling the mix under the name of Big Daddy’s Flaming Hellcats Bloody Mary Mix in honor of our Houston buddies in the band the Flaming Hellcats.

I’m especially interested in the HIGH ON FIRE sauce. They are a badass band! Details please!

Personally I think they’re the best live band out there right now. Freaking brutal. I got to know Des (High on Fire’s drummer) when my old band Transmaniacon MC opened for them and Mastodon a while back. I’d given Des couple of bottles of Ass Burn when he came in town once and he emailed me a little while back and asked if I’d be interested in putting out a High on Fire hot sauce with him that they can sell at their shows and on their website. Basically it’s the same recipe as Ass Burn but with habaneros instead of Thai peppers so the heat level is way higher. The test batches have come out real good. Des has been talking with Erik Roper (the artist that did the cover artwork for “Blessed Black Wings”) about designing the label so it should be really freaking cool. It’ll be out early next year, at least by the time they’re back out on the road.

How is distribution going? Is your sauce available with many online retailers?

Things are going real well right now. We won first place in the red sauce category at the 2006 Houston Hot Sauce Festival and fourth place in the pepper sauce category at the 2006 Austin Hot Sauce Festival. The Ass Burn and Ass Burn t-shirts can be ordered at www.bigdaddysassburn.com. In Houston we’re now at 13 Spec’s Liquors stores as well as a host of mom and pop stores scattered around town which can be found on our Sauce Locator page on the website. In Austin we’re at Tears of Joy Hot Sauce shop on 6th Street as well as the new Spec’s when they open.

Anything else you’d like to add? Shout-outs to the chile-head world?

Thanks a lot for everyone’s awesome support. The hot sauce world is filled with such cool freaking people. The world is starting to realize that you have to go through hell before you get to heaven. Everyone get out there and try some of Chuk Hell’s award winning Magic Blend #2 hot sauce (1st place in the Special Variety category at the 2006 Austin Hot Sauce Festival). Freaking killer stuff. Everyone take care and let it burn.

Thanks for the interview!

There you have it. And here you have my review of “ASS BURN”.

Well, with a name like “Ass Burn” your first impression might be that this is a novelty sauce; one of any private label sauces with a sassy label and generic sauce inside. That would be a mistake.

This is a fairly thick sauce that has lots of seeds from the fresh Thai chiles. It’s a rich, blood-red color. There are specks of bright red chiles in the deeper red sauce.

Ingredients: Vinegar, Fresh Thai Peppers, St. Arnold’s Lawnmower Beer, Chile de Arbol Peppers ( dried), Water, Brown Sugar, Molasses, Salt, Fresh Lime juice, Less than 2% of Citric Acid, Dextrose, caramel Color, Natural Flavors, Malic Acid, Hydrolized Soy and Corn protein, Dehydrated Onion, Dehydrated garlic, Mustard Seed ( ground) Garlic Powder and onion Powder.

That’s quite a list and this sauce makes the most of these ingredients by having a rather complex flavor.

This sauce has a deep, rich aroma that has vinegar up front but also hints at the many other ingredients.

Tasting this sauce I noticed that it somehow manages to taste sweet and sour at the same time, Perhaps the Asian influence? I’m not crazy about the mouth-feel of all those seeds but boy does this sauce have a nice flavor. It’s a unique flavor with the sweetness of the brown sugar and molasses duking it out with vinegar and peppers. The heat level is decent but low on the chile head scale. This is a sauce that sould have a very wide appeal to anyone looking for a flavorful and unique hot sauce.

Taste 8/10

Heat 6/10

Popularity: 36% [?]
» Big Daddy Hot Sauce in the news
» Ohio does a spicy rib burn-off…film at 11.
» Burn, Baby, Burn hot sauce still available
» Big Daddy dominates the Houston media again!
» Things to know about condiments

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website