Bradenton’s Saucy Guys turn up the heat

Jim Brannon and Neil Currie became friends when they worked at an auto parts company and discovered they had a love of cooking – and hot sauce.

Over the course of several years, they began bringing some of their sauces and dishes to Sunday pot-luck dinners at Paddy Wagon Irish Pub, 4402 State Road 64 E. in Bradenton, where they became a hit with their cooking.

“They would bring some of the best wings ever to the pot-lucks,” friend Tricia Stansbury said.

Stansbury was so impressed with their sauce that she would send samples to her sister in Virginia.

“This is our test market,” Currie said of those Sunday pot-lucks. “It’s a collaborative-type thing. Everything starts in the kitchen. We are both cooks and have been tinkering most of our lives.”

Currie started the foray into hot sauces by doing research on how to make salsa, and the inquiry expanded from there to pepper sauces and more.

With encouragement like Stansbury’s, Brannon and Currie decided in January to professionally market their sauces and contracted with Best Brand Bottlers in Sarasota to prepare and bottle their cayenne, serrano, and habanero pepper sauces, chipotle barbecue sauce, and tomato and garlic salsa.

After six months of work getting Food and Drug Administration approval, developing labels and a web site, they began selling bottles of sauce in July.

“Our whole thing is to go for the taste, rather than the heat,” Currie said.

Part of Brannon’s attraction to hot sauce comes from the time he served in the U.S. Air Force in the 1970s.

“In the Air Force, you had to have hot sauce for military food,” he said.

But even before his service in the Air Force, Brannon, a native of Charleston, West Virginia, was putting hot sauce on squirrel, raccoon and possum to improve the taste.

In addition to their time in the auto supply business, Currie and Brannon have been truckers. Currie, a native of Nova Scotia, Canada, also has worked as a police officer and a pastor.

Brannon worked in construction and became a master carpenter.

Today, the friends have full beards, are semi-retired and can compare notes on their heart conditions.

“We are not just selling a product. We’re trying to develop a following,” Currie said. “Most of our business is repeat business.”

Saucy Guys products are sold at Paddy Wagon Irish Pub and at Last Call Sports Bar and Grill, 2604 Manatee Ave. E., as well as on the Saucy Guys web site, saucyguys.com. Bottles of sauce sell for $4.99 to $5.99.

Top sellers include the serrano pepper sauce and the fire-roasted tomato-and-garlic salsa.

The web site also includes recipes that reflect the tastes and sense of humor of the friends, including “Knock Your Socks Off Spicy Burgers,” “Slow Cooked Baby Back Ribs,” and “Barbecue Squirrel.”

Planned new products include a Bloody Mary mix, a cookbook and a YouTube cooking series.

Jamie Schroeder, manager of Paddy Wagon, serves as accounts manager for Currie and Brannon.

“The next step is to get the sauce into more stores around here,” she said.

Currie and Brannon seem to be having fun with their new hot sauces.

“We are just two good old boys trying to leave a legacy for our children,” Brannon said.

Currie adds: “This business is smooth. When you have a good product, it seems to run on its own. My vision is to make Bradenton not just the orange juice capital of Florida, but the hot sauce capital as well.”

For more information, call 941-479-1304, or visit saucyguys.com.

This story was originally published October 2, 2016 at 5:00 PM with the headline "Bradenton’s Saucy Guys turn up the heat."