This is what some might refer to as a "teaser".
As most of y'all know, it's taken the better part of 3 years to develop my line of sauces, and that's after almost 8 years as a hobby sauce maker.
I launched the Lucky Dog brand with just 3 sauces. Based on customer feedback and inspiration I then developed Black Label at the end of my 1st year. Pink & Purple Label followed a year later, and of course Dia del Perro was inspired by the sublime artwork of Robin Case 7 months later.
I've never rushed a sauce to market simply because of a trend or perceived demand - the journey is as important to me as the destination, and I'll often spend months prototyping a sauce before deciding if it's worthy of bearing the Lucky Dog Hot Sauce branding.
As a sauce-maker, recipe development is the most fun, but also the most challenging part of the job. Figuring out spice combinations, what fruits or vegetables will compliment certain foods and how they will compete for your taste buds - I generally approach a sauce with food pairings in mind, and I never lose sight that I am creating a condiment intended to compliment food. This is the mad scientist part of my brain that cannot experiment enough. Whee!
This was exactly the case with Brown Label. While customers have asked me about a chipotle sauce for years, I honestly never thought that I would make one. Not because I don't like chipotle sauces, but with such a dominant flavor profile they most often tend to lack the characteristic depth and layering that I try to build into each of my varieties, and versatility is frequently lacking as well.
So I took it on as a personal challenge: How can I make a chipotle-style Lucky Dog Hot Sauce? How can something so bold also be versatile and layered? How can I incorporate subtlety, and how can I make it unique?
I truly believe I've achieved my goal with Brown Label - I'm beyond pleased with the prototype and I will be scaling it out to a production batch at the end of February.
If all goes well, Brown Label is expected to make its debut at the Albuquerque Fiery Food & BBQ show, March 6th-8th, 2015, and will also be available for sale online on March 7th, 2015.
This has been your Lucky Dog Hot Sauce Brown Label teaser for today.
Love & hot sauce
Scott