March 15, 2025 • 45 mins
The primary focus of this episode revolves around the illustrious figure of Richard Westhaver, affectionately known in culinary circles as Dirty Dick, who has made an indelible mark in the realm of hot sauces. As we delve into his remarkable journey, we uncover the genesis of his distinctive sauces, which originated from his early experiences in the Caribbean, where he was inspired by the vibrant flavors and culinary practices of the local populace. Throughout our discourse, we explore the myriad challenges he has faced in navigating the competitive landscape of the food industry, particularly the complexities of distribution and marketing that often thwart emerging entrepreneurs. Additionally, we engage in a thorough examination of the regulatory framework governing food production, emphasizing the importance of comprehending these nuances for anyone aspiring to enter this domain. Join us as we gain insights from Dirty Dick's wealth of experience and reflect on the evolving nature of consumer preferences in the hot sauce market.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Painter Hills Natural Beef
- Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission
- Dirty Dick's Hot Sauces
- Heritage Steel
- Hammer Stahl
- Restaurant Depot
- Walmart
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:34):
It's time for Barbecue Nationwith jt so fire up your grill, light
the charcoal, and get yoursmoker cooking.
Now from the Turn It Don'tBurnet studios in Portland, here's
jt.
Hey, everybody.
Welcome to the nation.
That's Barbecue Nation.
I'm JT along with Leanne.
We'd like to thank you forsharing your time with us this week.
We'd like to thank the folksat Painter Hills Natural Beef, beef
(00:56):
the way nature intended, andalso the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission
from sea to plate.
Great stuff there.
Well, we've got a legend withus today, Richard Westhaver, known
as Dirty Dick in the barbecueand hot sauce world.
And he's been a friend ofLeanne's for a long, long time.
And so we invited him on theshow, and I'm excited to talk to
(01:18):
him.
Dick, how are you?
I'm doing great.
Good.
How are you guys doing?
We're good.
Really good.
We're good.
I think we're getting taughtwe can get together.
Yeah.
So I got to ask you for ourlisteners, how'd you get the name
Dirty Dick?
Dirty Dick.
Well, I had a barbecue team,late 80s, and I called myself Dirty
(01:40):
Dick.
And the firemen that helpedme, I had three firemen by the end
of Friday night, they'd be sodrunk, they'd be swaying and bobbing
and weaving.
And I said, those are mylegless wonders.
And then it stuck.
And my team was Dirty Dick andthe leg was wonders after that.
(02:04):
I can appreciate that.
I think Leanne can, too.
I can.
So how did you make the jumpfrom a competitive barbecue team
into creating some of the besthot sauces in the world?
Well, actually, sauce camebefore the barbecue team.
Okay.
(02:25):
So I.
My family owned a house in theCaribbean, the island of Montserrat.
So for 30 years, we went andspent a lot of time in the Caribbean.
And we'd go shopping.
We.
You know, you live like thelocals when you're down there, right?
You have an open air marketevery Saturday.
(02:46):
So we always went and shopped,and there'd be like 20 ladies selling
their stuff.
They grew, and there wasalways peppers all over.
Habaneros, jalapenos, serranos.
And they all ate with peppers,and there was peppers on every table.
Pepper sauce.
(03:06):
And we slowly got into theswing of peppers with your food.
And we were all cooks.
My family owned restaurants,so we used to.
I said, I think I'll make hot sauce.
And I'd buy.
I bought a bunch of habanerosand I was making sauce.
(03:27):
You know, I kept making sauce,writing recipes and trying it, and
I actually developed it on theisland of Montserrat.
Wow.
The first one, the red one,Dirty Dick original.
That would be that one, Ithink, if you can see that.
Yeah, yeah.
(03:48):
So there's a lot of barbecuesauces, as you know.
I'm guessing there's got to beover a thousand different barbecue
sauces out there these days.
I mean, there is.
You can't go into it.
You can't even go in thehardware store and not see barbecue
sauces there.
(04:09):
Oh, yeah.
Hot sauces go hand in handwith that, but they're a little different.
When you started making asauce, was it the logical step for
you then to start selling it locally?
Or did you just try it withfriends and family or walk us through
that process?
All right, well, so I, I waswriting recipes and I stumbled upon
(04:33):
the.
My first one, I said, this is it.
I got the, I got the flavor down.
And how did I start?
I, like, I began cooking sauceand I needed one.
I helped my team when we, Ihad all these guys with me.
(04:57):
I had to pay for like four people.
So we had rooms, we had travel expenses.
Right.
I said, why don't we sell mysauce at a, at the booth?
And I had grandma there.
She was like 80 years old, andwe stuck her behind a table.
I came up with a label and Ilearned how to, how to, how to market
(05:19):
it.
I learned how to get anutritionist and do my label, and
so I learned all that stuff.
And basically we startedselling it at barbecue contest because
I wanted to make the 500 bucksto pay for the rub.
Oh, yeah.
I just wanted to pay for the rug.
I, I love the fact that youdid shameless promotion with your
(05:43):
grandmother.
I, I love that you're out front.
Everyone goes, wow, Danny's here.
We gotta buy sauce from her.
I mean, how can you turn downan 80 year old lady going, come over
here.
You want to try our sauce?
Exactly.
It works.
Did you ever meet, Meet her?
Leanne?
I don't recall meeting her.
(06:05):
I don't think she was ever in.
Where would we go?
Maryland.
Yeah.
Bel Air.
Used to come compete with your dad.
Yeah.
Wow.
So over the years, it's growna lot.
And so where are youcommercially now?
Well, now I have four sauces.
I'm working on my fifth.
(06:26):
I go ghost pepper sauce.
I've been working on that forover a year, so sales are good.
My Amazon, I sell over athousand bottles a month on Amazon.
That's great.
Right up there in top 20.
And I've got a lot of clients.
I sell to Australia, England,Denmark, Iceland, basically.
(06:51):
And I have a lot of accountsin Marathon.
I'm not in any markets, no big supermarkets.
So it's all.
It's all off brands and it'sall, you know, private distributors
who buy my stuff.
Is that tough with.
With hot sauces?
I mean, I know how.
I know how tough it is with,with rubs and barbecue sauces.
(07:13):
I dipped my toe in that watera long time ago and then went.
Ran away.
But is it.
Is it harder with hot saucesbecause they're not as commonly used?
Well, I think.
Because I call it Dirty Dick'sHot Sauce.
Right.
I think some people got turnedoff by.
Well, you can't help ifthey're prudes or whatever.
(07:35):
I could do about that, but Ithink I used to.
I pitched so many supermarketsand they just never pulled the trigger.
So I don't know if it's thename or I just didn't have the right
connections.
But I haven't been able to getin any big market chains.
I do a lot of private sales.
I wouldn't think anybody wouldbe offended by that name with.
(07:58):
All you gotta do is Turn onyour TV at 8:00 at night and you
hear much worse.
A lot worse than that.
Yeah.
And once you try it, I mean,just taste it.
Yeah, it's my favorite hotsauce by far.
That should do it.
But it doesn't do it for that.
I'm not just saying thatbecause he's my friend, but it seriously
(08:19):
is.
No, they're great sauces.
I mean, I've got the last.
He sent me a case or a dozenbottles and the ones I saved.
So when I knew I was going todo the show, I didn't open those.
The other one, some of themare already empty and, and like that.
So I really liked them.
But hot sauce just intriguesme because it's something that we've
(08:44):
had a lot of people on the show.
Let me back up a second, Dick.
We've had a lot of people onthe show talking about their barbecue
sauces and they, they say,well, you know, we started this sauce
in our family kitchen.
Typical story, great storieslike that.
But they get into the, the market.
Trying to get into the market,I think would be a better way to
(09:05):
say that.
They try to get into it andthen they find out how difficult
it is with stories morehorrendous than what you were just
saying.
You've pitched lots of markets.
Do you think that that's evergoing to change or.
Because now we're seeing theamalgamation of all these huge, like
Kroger's and Albertsons.
They're just, these chains aregetting bigger and bigger and it's
(09:28):
harder and harder, I think, toget product on the shelves.
I have, well, one distributorI've been selling to for years.
He called me a couple of weeks ago.
I didn't know what he was, whohe was.
He said, dick, I'm a lawyerand also.
And I am a food broker and Irepresent Walmart.
(09:52):
He said, and I'm gonna pitchyou to Walmart.
You know, you want 5%, whichis okay, but.
So that was the only timeanyone's ever said, I, I think I
can get you into a big chain.
And it hadn't happened yet,but he talked to me about it.
Was that recently?
(10:13):
Yeah, within the last month.
I guess.
They buy once a year.
Yeah, they actually sit downand shop sauces once a year.
So I got to wait for that,whatever that time is.
He said he'd get back to me.
Can you handle that kind of volume?
I doubt it.
Because he said, he said, howmany, how many sites do you have
(10:38):
making your sauce?
I said, just one.
He said, well, he said, MarieSharp ships.
He brokers hers.
She ships five pallets a month.
Five.
Not five pallets, five tractortrailer loads.
And, and that's like, youknow, 40, 40 pallets.
(11:02):
Right.
Times 20.
That's what she's shipping to them.
He said, are you gonna be ableto handle that?
I said, no.
Well, maybe he can get me intoone region.
Walmart may start you off,give you time to build up.
So if they like your product,they put up with you.
(11:25):
That's fair.
You grow up.
Yeah.
To what they want.
They start you in a likenortheast region.
And maybe you can handle onetractor trailer load, which is like
21 gallons.
That's a lot of sauce.
That's a lot of sauce.
But that's like, that would bewhere you start.
So once you get these guys,you gotta supply them.
(11:50):
You gotta have the, you gottahave the production facility.
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
You gotta, once you, if youtook that next step, you better be
ready.
So he was prepping me saying,you better think about this.
You may want to get anothermanufacturer to have two.
Wow.
(12:10):
If it happens.
I said, wow.
I didn't know that either.
Yeah.
We're going to take a quick break.
We're going to be back withRichard West Haver, Dirty Dick from
Dirty Dick's Hot Sauces rightafter this on the Nation.
Please stay with us.
(12:32):
Hey, everybody, it's Jeff here.
I want to tell you aboutsomething really cool.
Heritage steel cookware.
I just got mine.
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Stay cool handles.
It's titanium strengthened.
It's got all the great stuff.
Just go to HeritageSteel usand find out more.
You'll love it.
I guarantee it.
(13:04):
Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.
I'm JT along with LeanneWhippen, my co host, co pilot, Frank
friend, and hall of famer.
And today we're talking withRichard Westover, Dirty dicks from
Dirty Dick's Hot Sauces thatwe were talking about distribution
and stuff.
Did you.
Have you had any supply chainissues over the last few years?
A lot of businesses have.
(13:25):
Well, during COVID the glassdried up.
They weren't bringing in any glass.
So I scoured the countries.
I called every glass company Iknew, and I tried to find glass made
in America.
And I.
I have found a couple, and soI'm still buying from those guys,
(13:47):
but there was no glass coming in.
Nobody had glass, you know,local distributors.
What about the peppers and stuff?
The.
The produce, so to speak.
I could get peppers, you can't.
I always use red habaneros, soI specify that.
But it.
During COVID they wouldn't.
(14:08):
You couldn't get reds.
They'd say, well, you can havea box and mixed.
So it'd be coming from Mexicoand you could get them out of Mexico.
Most of my stuff is DominicanRepublic, so that's the normal supply
chain.
But they dried up.
They weren't shipping.
How long did it take them toget back on their feet?
(14:32):
Oh, it was touch and go for ayear and a half.
You'd get some, then it stopped.
You get some.
I kept scouring people, youknow, you keep calling.
And there were people thatgrew them, but they wouldn't sell
them to me.
Really.
Because I want the huts new.
(14:54):
The New York hot sauce show.
I won the world championshiptwice, and I won first place every
year.
So they just.
Just like in barbecue, theydon't like the guy who wins all the
time.
So there was a guy that madeNash, and he wouldn't.
He wouldn't tell me anything.
Wow.
Yeah.
He grew enough, but hewouldn't do it.
(15:16):
So he.
I couldn't get it from thelocal people.
Were those mostly like fromthe west coast and.
And glass guys from the.
From the west coast had glass.
But shipping to ship twopallets of glass on the west coast
might be over A thousand dollars.
Right.
And it was cost prohibitiveafter that.
(15:38):
Wow.
I don't.
I'm not sure that people.
The consumer thinks about that.
When they go to the store, they.
I have no idea what yourproducts cost at a retail level,
but if they.
Let's say they're $7 a bo andall of a sudden they're 8.50 a bottle,
all they think is that you'vejacked up the prices.
And it's not really you're doing.
(15:59):
It's the fact that you wereput in a bind with supply chain issues
and stuff, and somebody has topick that up.
Like the guys who buy, say,the guys who buy several pallets
from.
And I say, oh, I gotta go up 8 cents.
They fight me tooth and nail.
(16:20):
They won't even give me the 8 cents.
They don't want to do it.
That's really tough.
Once you set the price, theydon't ever want to hear it, that
you're going up.
Do you have to pay theshipping on that, too?
The freight?
They pay their own freight.
It's free on board BellowsFalls, Vermont, which is where I
make it.
(16:41):
Okay.
So I tell them that.
So they have to arrangeshipping, or I'll arrange it for
them and ship it to whereverthey are.
But they pay.
I don't pay shipping.
You ever have people ask you,how did somebody from the Northeast
get in the hot sauce business?
You don't think of Vermont andhot sauce, for example?
No.
(17:01):
No way.
Well, I live in Boston, but Imanufacture in Vermont because they
have the.
They have a lot less rules.
Food rules.
Like, Massachusetts is horrible.
So I.
It's cheaper for me tomanufacture up there.
So I do.
(17:23):
And no, people don't know.
People don't.
They don't understand.
Yeah, like mango puree.
So six cans used to be like 12 bucks.
It's now 22 at Restaurant Depot.
So that's, you know, pricesjust keep going.
And the guys who buy a lotdon't want to hear it.
(17:45):
Yeah.
They won't pay you.
They said, no, you don't wantto do it.
They won't.
They, like, hold you.
Hold you to it.
So you have to kind of eat alot of stuff.
Is it.
Is it important, Dick, to do,like you said, the.
The New York hot sauce show.
And I know that we have a hotsauce show.
I live in, just south ofPortland, Oregon.
(18:07):
There's a show here.
There's a big show in New Mexico.
Do you.
Do you hit all those shows?
No, I.
We used to go to A lot more shows.
I've been to the one in.
I've been to Texas, and theNew York show is closest to us, and
that was the big one in the beginning.
That was like, the big one.
(18:29):
So we've been there, like,probably 12 years.
I.
I had a boo.
I'm not going this year.
In two weeks is the show inNew York, and.
But I don't do too many anymore.
By the time you.
I take four people, the booth,all the sauce, pay for the rooms,
(18:51):
pay for the gas, pay for theentry fee, and even, you know, it's
like 3,000 bucks.
Right.
Generally, you don't sell.
You don't come close to them.
How do you.
How do you sample it?
They allow you to use littlespoons, like tiny spoons.
We.
We put it on chips.
(19:12):
Okay.
People grab a chip, and thenwe have a squeeze bottle and put
a drop on it, and that's howthey eat it.
The chips are.
The chips work better than I.
Yeah, I was wondering aboutthat, because I've done some food
shows.
I know Leanne's done a ton of them.
And each.
Each state has their ownregulations about what you can do.
(19:35):
And if you have to have a foodhandler's card or, you know, whatever
it is, they're all different.
To me, every place, every showis different.
And generally, if you use awooden spoon, you're safe everywhere.
It's where you start puttingit on food.
Yeah, putting it on corn chips.
We used to put it on cornchips because they were salty.
(19:58):
People liked it.
So that's.
If they let us, we do that.
But pretty much now it'swooden spoons, a plastic spoon.
Yeah, you would think,rationally thinking.
And that's.
But you would think that therewould be kind of a standardized practice
in food shows across the country.
(20:19):
Somebody would get togetherand say, we can do this and we can
do this, but you can't do this.
And so you always knew what toexpect when you went to a food show,
but they don't ever do that.
So different states, differenthealth departments is the.
It depends on the healthdepartment guy.
Oh, absolutely.
We're going to take another break.
We're going to be back withDirty Dick from Dirty Dick's Hot
(20:41):
Sauce right after this.
Stay with us.
Hey, everybody, it's JT And Ihave eaten.
If you've ever looked at me,you know that.
But I have eaten seafood allover the world, and I can tell you
there's no place better thanhere in Oregon and our Dungeness
(21:04):
crab.
If you Want to learn moreabout Oregon Dungeness crab?
Just go to oregondungeness.organd find out how to cook it, how
to catch it, where to buy it,and the sustainability of what they're
doing there in the Oregon Crab Commission.
Check it out.
(21:29):
Welcome back to the Nation.
That's Barbecue Nation again.
We'd like to thank the folksat Painterdale's Natural Beef and
the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission.
I have to tell Leanne this.
It'll upset her a little bit,but I'll tell her anyway.
Oh, Friday were filming aninterview close up at the golf course,
and I get to feed them crabcocktails again.
(21:50):
Oh, I'm jealous.
Best crab in the world.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Have you ever had Dungenesscrab, Dick, from the West Coast?
I have.
I've had it.
I love it.
Once in a while.
I sell it locally.
Yeah, it's great stuff.
(22:12):
It's great stuff, and we'refortunate to get our hands on it
when we need it.
And I.
I've rarely found a personthat would say, oh, no, I don't like
that.
I'm not sure if I've everfound a person that says, no, I don't
like that.
But Restaurant Depot, if youbuy a, you know, 28 ounces of crab,
you can pay up to 50 bucks for it.
(22:32):
If you get.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
It's like when.
What would you tell people,Dick, that have.
I don't want to call themdelusions of.
Delusions of grandeur, but they're.
They're working on sauces.
I have a friend of mine, shelives in Virginia.
(22:54):
Her and her husband made not ahot sauce, but more of a glaze kind
of a barbecue sauce.
It was excellent stuff, butthey kind of got their butt handed
to them when they were tryingto go through the process that you
explained earlier.
They had to have a commercialkitchen make it.
This is when they were tryingto get into the retail business.
(23:15):
They really couldn't do it athome, you know, and then they had
to try to find a distributor,and then the labels and it's a.
It's a big, long process.
And I'm always curious about that.
Somebody like you who's hadsuccess with your sauces, what would
you advise them to do?
Well, the first thing I doafter they have a recipe, everyone's
got one, right.
(23:36):
Is they have to learn the foodrules, the federal food rules.
When you're making a sauce,you have to learn about ph.
It's like, my sauces have alow enough ph that they don't need
to be refrigerated.
Right.
And they're more shelf stable.
And I tell people to learn allthose rules because you're not going
(23:58):
to be able to make your sauceunless you know about it.
You know, you don't want to.
If you can get away with itnot being refrigerated, that's a
big deal.
But you got to understand howto do production, food production.
And so there's a lot, youknow, they have rules around here
in New England.
Cornell runs it, runs it forthe federal government.
(24:20):
You have to deal with Cornell.
Are they reasonable?
Yeah, they're reasonable.
When they upset, they'll tellyou what to do.
The PH that's involved, peopledon't even think about the PH of
their sauce.
Right.
Whether it needs to be refrigerated.
If they send it to Cornell,they tell them.
(24:41):
They tell you, boy, this hasto be boiled 185 degrees for 32 minutes.
And they explain to people theproduction scheduled for their product.
Because.
Do they charge you for that?
No, they don't charge.
That's amazing.
They work with the feds.
(25:02):
Somehow they feel like thefed, the wing of the federal food
regulators.
And I think each region hastheir own company.
And I know out here, out here.
Out here, it's Oregon Statebecause they've got a big, huge food
ag department, food sciencesstuff, and they do the.
(25:23):
The ph stuff.
And they also put on classesfor people.
No, you can learn it.
Yeah, because I started in a.
In a starter kitchen, and theyhave kitchens that'll teach you how
to make your sauce.
And it's like community.
Community kitchens.
(25:44):
Right.
So if you find a communitykitchen, there'll be someone there
that'll help you if you wantto put in the work.
Oh, absolutely.
What's your favorite sauce outof the four you've got on the market?
I like the red.
That was my first one.
Yeah.
Actually, I like them all.
I like all the children.
(26:04):
So I hate.
Can't pick your favorite.
Right.
Red, like, is.
Plus it sells like five, eighttimes more than the others, you know,
so you gotta like that part.
I think.
Leanne.
Don't you like the Caribbeanone, Leanne?
(26:26):
Yes.
Yeah.
It's like each one I've beento Barbados and I ate their sauce
and I said, well, I'm going tomake a barbado sauce, and that's
the Caribbean one.
I got that from Barbados.
And then my Peachy green, Isaid, I think I'm gonna write a recipe
for spicy relish to put it onyour Hot dogs.
(26:48):
And that's.
That's how I got peachy green.
And then the chipotle was.
I said, I'm gonna make aMexican sauce.
So that's kind of how I lookat each one, you know?
So I kind of.
I really like each one of thembecause I work on them so long.
Once I find that it's.
This is it.
(27:09):
You think that.
You think that people.
When they.
When they think of hot sauces.
Dick.
They think it's Tabasco.
Right.
That's.
Everyone knows the best.
Yeah.
Or if you're out here in thewest and we've got a lot of Hispanic
influence out here, what isit, the pico.
(27:30):
I'm not saying it right, butthey've got two or three that are
out here that if you go to aMexican restaurant, they're always
on the table, or if you askthem for a hot sauce, that's what
they will bring you.
But do you think people arehesitant sometimes to expand their
taste palettes and their tastebuds by looking at it?
(27:52):
People are afraid of the heat.
Yeah.
They go, oh, my God, how hotis this?
This is always the first question.
And that's why I never made mystuff hotter than medium, because
I wanted them to try it.
Yeah.
A lot of people can't handlethe heat, and I think that's got
(28:13):
a lot to do with it.
Well, I know.
I know.
Is Frank's Red Hot andTabasco, and that's west.
It's called Topatio, I think.
Yes.
Yeah.
And that's all they know is what.
Because that's what's on every tape.
Like, the little guys.
We never get our sauce onrestaurant tables.
(28:34):
Never get in a chain.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
You'd have to give it away, probably.
And how would you get it on inRestaurant Depot?
Because that's where everyone buys.
So I pitched Restaurant Depot,and they go, what did you say that
name was?
(28:54):
And I tell the lady, and shegoes, no, no, thanks.
So I know that I get.
You didn't even get by the.
If it was Freddy's Hot Sauce,you might have tried it, you know,
but she didn't even want totry it.
Said, no.
What if you made it?
Hair loss.
Yeah.
What.
What if you made a one thatsaid clean dicks or something?
(29:17):
Yeah.
I actually changed the nameonce, and I thought a clean dick,
you know, kind of a goof.
But it's a lot of effort justto have a goof.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Go through the wholerigamarole to change it.
No.
(29:38):
Oh, I Love it.
I love it.
We're talking with him,Richard Westhaver, commonly known
in food circles as Dirty Dicksfrom Dirty Dick's Hot Sauces.
And you can find them at Amazon.
You can find them around the country.
Are they more prevalent on theeast coast than they are out my way?
(30:00):
Yeah.
Because I have a distributorin Vermont.
I have two in Vermont.
And they like really local stuff.
So all the tourist traps havemy sauce.
Yeah.
Because made in Vermont,that's a big deal.
It is.
I don't know about the rest ofthe country because I sell it to
people, but I don't know whereit goes.
Right.
(30:20):
Like people say, hey, I was inFlorida and I.
And Key West.
I was in this store.
I had your stuff in it.
And so I don't even know whereit comes from.
We're going a lot of the timebecause they don't tell you.
Yeah.
So I don't even know.
It's all over, though.
It's all over.
(30:41):
That.
That.
When I was doing the rubs andstuff a long time ago, that happened
to me.
My wife and I were travelingand we stopped in this little town
for the night and we.
Next day we got up, went, hadbreakfast, and we were kind of looking
around.
We walked into this little,like you said, a tourist trap store
and walked and.
And they had some displays.
(31:02):
And on the.
On one of the displays therewas my rubs.
And I don't know how in thehell they got there.
You know, in southeast Idaho.
I never sold them to anybodyin southeast Idaho, so I have no
idea.
How it gets around.
Yeah.
So I can't tell people.
They say, well, I'm in Chicago.
Who.
Where can I get your sauce?
I'm saying you have to get iton Amazon or on my website because
(31:26):
I don't know, you know, so that's.
Has the business been good toyou, Dick?
Yeah, overall, it's pretty good.
Yeah.
I think.
I think a lot of people get disheartened.
They may have a great product.
Not taking anything away fromtheir product.
It may be fantastic.
But they're not used to theslog, the long slog, if you will,
(31:49):
it takes to really get yourproducts on the shelves.
There's a lot more competitionout there these days than there was
10 years ago.
So that's when you have tostart with the shows.
When you start.
Start out, you have to go tothose shows because there's no other
(32:10):
way to get your stuff up.
Yeah.
So that's what people have to do.
Like, we did a lot more showsthan we do now.
And I don't know how elseyou're going to get it out.
There's no other way to taste it.
Like, we.
When we.
We used to sell the WholeFoods, and they would make you come
in and sample it.
(32:32):
So they'd make you do it?
Yeah, absolutely.
You had to sample, actually,in the stores.
They'd say, well, they got theguy from Hingham.
They got my store off the street.
They'd say, look, I want youin here every six months.
And you'd have to go bringyour table and your little setup,
and you'd have to stay thereabout four hours.
(32:53):
Wow.
If.
If you wanted to keep yourstuff in.
In the store.
Yeah, that's what they do.
Yep.
Absolutely.
We're gonna take another break.
We're gonna come back and wrapup the show with Dick Westhaver from
Dirty Dick's Hot Sauces rightafter this.
Stay with us.
(33:19):
Hey, everybody, it's jt.
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(33:40):
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(34:00):
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them.
Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.
I'm JT along with LeanneWhippin, and today we're talking
with formerly known as RichardWesthaver, now known as Dirty Dick
(34:24):
from Dirty Dick's Hot Sauces.
Give us your website realquick, too, Dick, so people can hear
it.
Www.dirtydickshotsauce.comThere you go.
And they can find it on Amazon?
Yes, it's on Amazon.
Is there any other retailoutlets on online that they can find
(34:47):
it?
You know, you can get it.
People sell it to Walmart.
They sell it to ebay.
You can get it on ebay, Walmart.
I don't even know who gives itto them, but it's on there.
Well, because people askpermission to be on Amazon, right?
Because you can kind ofcontrol Amazon.
(35:11):
For a while, they would, theytook my.
Another thing, the piracy.
They took the barcode offDirty Dick's hot Sauce, and they
were selling T shirts toAmazon with my.
Oh, wow, I've never heard of that.
I got.
Yeah, I didn't know till Iwanted to.
(35:32):
They have a thing calledtransparency, where you wouldn't
let anyone to sell your sauce.
You could, like, lock everyone out.
And I found out about allThose guys, like 20 people selling
my stuff that I didn't evenknow about, because you can't tell
who it is.
(35:53):
Like, if you go on, it'll sayJB Industries.
There's no way to know whothose guys are because everyone has
a different name.
Right.
So you have to be, you know,you really have to.
If it matters, you know, ifyou care and just.
But that's, There's a lot ofpiracy, too.
You have to be careful.
(36:15):
It's kind of like the name ofthis show, Barbecue Nation, and I
own the trademark to it, butall the time I turn around and find
something that somebody that'sgot a different podcast, a different
show, maybe they're makingrubs, whatever, and they don't bother
to check, or if they do, theydon't care.
(36:36):
And so we have to write them acease and desist letter.
You know, haven't had to golegally beat up anybody yet, but
it's a pain in the butt to do that.
I trade backed mine, and thenthe lawyer does this, the search.
Right.
And then they get back to youand go, oh, there's this guy here
and that one there.
But he's not, he's not trademarked.
(36:58):
So I have a trademark now, butit didn't matter for Amazon.
There were a lot of peopleusing my name, my numbers.
It's tough out there.
Yeah.
How do you think that yourtime in, when you had a barbecue
team, how did that in the longrun affect what you created in the
(37:22):
sauces?
Well, I was cooking all thetime and writing recipes because
I always wanted to win thebarbecue contest.
And I, I, it was kind of aseparate deal because I never put
hot sauce on my barbecue.
So that was like a separate thing.
Right.
(37:43):
That I.
The hot sauce never gotcrossed over to barbecue.
But you can't submit hot foodto the judges.
No, no.
They'd have a.
You know, I never had that inmind when I was writing recipes.
Well, that makes sense.
Yeah.
You know, and the profileshave changed.
(38:06):
I don't compete.
Leanne certainly knows moreabout this than I do, but seems to
me that from the events thatI've gone to, the profiles have changed
even over the last five, eightyears as to what's winning, if you
will.
It seems like the sweeterpeople kept up in the sweet taste.
(38:30):
And that seems to be what's going.
When I judge.
Seems to be a lot of peopleusing the same sauce.
Like, they don't.
You make their own stuff.
They use commercial stuff.
Right.
I don't want to say their name.
Well, you can say their names out.
(38:52):
And, you know, with hotsauces, it's different.
You know, there's a lot ofcrappy hot sauces.
Oh, yeah, Yeah.
A lot of horrible ones.
So those guys, they drop bythe wayside, you know, there's nobody's.
Once you try it, if it's notany good, then I.
Yeah, they're not.
Going to buy it again.
Right.
(39:12):
You can get them once, butyou'll never get repeats.
I can't tell you how manysamples people have sent me over
the years since I started thisshow that the lid came off, I tasted
it and it went away.
You know, I.
It just wasn't any good.
I didn't.
(39:32):
And I try to be very nice topeople about stuff.
You know, I don't want to beharsh with them if I can avoid it,
but there's an awful lot ofthem that never made it past that
first little taste.
You know, a lot of peopledon't know enough about food that
they don't know what's good.
Yeah, they, you know, theyhaven't done enough with food.
(39:54):
They don't understand what's agood sauce, and they don't, you know,
they don't understand it orthey try to copy someone.
They just don't have the skill.
Did you work in therestaurants with your family when
you were younger?
I grew up behind the counter.
Our restaurant, we had two,and I never really cooked.
(40:17):
I was too young to cook in the restaurants.
Yeah.
But I was always in.
In them.
And then we just had arestaurant family.
Everyone cooked.
My brother went to Cornell.
He.
He opened up his own place andI used to hang out there.
But, no, I never really.
(40:38):
I cooked in a few, but not.
Were they in the Boston area?
Yeah, yeah, they were in Boston.
My brother had one in Hingham.
That's where his place was.
That's a tough business, too,as Leanne can attest to, and anybody
that.
And I can attest to.
You've been in the restaurant business?
(40:58):
They were never home.
That's all.
I.
Mm.
Yeah.
My mother worked the night shift.
My father Worked the day shift.
So 5am to 5, let's say 5 to 5.
And then she'd go in.
They were open till they werethere across the street from a theater.
They were open till two in themorning, so she wouldn't make it
(41:20):
home before a.m.
wow.
That was their life.
So I knew I'm never going tobe in a restaurant because I don't
want to live that way.
But I got the, you know, Ilove to cook.
And we all cooked.
And so I took it out onbarbecue contests and making hot
(41:41):
sauce.
So that's where it kind ofaffected me.
I knew what wasn't the recipe.
I wasn't going to have one.
If you could do one thingdifferent in the process of doing
your hot sauces, what would it be?
If anything.
I'd be.
(42:01):
Try to be better at marketing.
You have to learn a lot aboutmarketing because you waste a lot
of time flubbing around tryingto get your sauce out.
You don't.
You don't get anywhere.
Like, you call a local stopand shop.
Hi, I'd like to send you my sauce.
You know, nothing ever happens.
You could.
(42:22):
And there's got to be a better way.
Did they.
I'm curious about this, too,because we're.
We're just about done withthis part of the show, Dick.
But.
All right.
When I was doing the rubs, Ihad a couple.
The larger stores say, okay,here's what we want you to do.
We want you to send us fourcases of each.
(42:43):
I had four like you have.
I had four.
They.
Four cases of each.
But we want you to send themto these 10 stores and.
And then we want you to pay back.
Then it was $5,000 a quarterfor their in ad inserts.
And the price just kept goingup before you ever.
(43:04):
You never sold one bottle yetbefore all this.
And then they wanted you tocome in and do the store demos.
And so I just kind of like,said, no, I can't do that.
It was.
It was pretty crazy.
Well, that's how they keep thelittle guy out of there.
Yeah.
You know, that's how theyqualify you.
Yeah.
(43:24):
Got the money to do it.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, on a totally separatenote, the Jack Daniels contest is
coming up soon.
Did you know Jeff, that dirtydick hands out the magic hickory
nets with Artie?
But last year was last year.
Yeah, no more.
(43:44):
Yep.
Yep.
I talked to Artie the otherday, and he's got a hickory nut for
you, Leanne.
He already sent it to me.
Did he?
Okay.
Yes.
Yeah, he's on it.
Yeah.
He's got that.
Well, anyway, we need to getout of.
Out of here for the radio partof this.
No, wait.
No, you're not.
You're not going anywhere yet.
(44:05):
You're not going any more minutes.
Yeah, but.
Richard Westhaver from DirtyDick's Hot Sauce.
Thank you, man.
I appreciate it.
It's great to talk to you.
Thank you for asking me to beon your show.
No problem.
We will be back next week withanother edition of Barbecue Nation.
Until then, go out, try somejigs hot sauce.
(44:26):
Go online and find it at DirtyDick Sauce.
Seriously, my favorite hot sauce.
And I'm not just saying that.
And if people buy it and saysomething different, I would.
I would be totally surprised.
No, definitely.
Yep.
I agree.
I agree.
All right.
Thanks for being with us.
Remember our motto.
Turn it, don't burn it.
Take care, everybody.
(44:46):
Barbecue Nation is produced byjtsd, LLC Productions in association
with Salem Media Group.
All rights reserved.
It's time for Barbecue Nationwith jt so fire up your grill, light
the charcoal, and get yoursmoker cooking.
Now from the Turn It Don'tBurnet studios in Portland, here's
jt.
Hey, everybody.
Welcome to the nation.
That's Barbecue Nation.
I'm JT along with Leanne.
We'd like to thank you forsharing your time with us this week.
We'd like to thank the folksat Painter Hills Natural Beef, beef
(00:56):
the way nature intended, andalso the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission
from sea to plate.
Great stuff there.
Well, we've got a legend withus today, Richard Westhaver, known
as Dirty Dick in the barbecueand hot sauce world.
And he's been a friend ofLeanne's for a long, long time.
And so we invited him on theshow, and I'm excited to talk to
(01:18):
him.
Dick, how are you?
I'm doing great.
Good.
How are you guys doing?
We're good.
Really good.
We're good.
I think we're getting taughtwe can get together.
Yeah.
So I got to ask you for ourlisteners, how'd you get the name
Dirty Dick?
Dirty Dick.
Well, I had a barbecue team,late 80s, and I called myself Dirty
(01:40):
Dick.
And the firemen that helpedme, I had three firemen by the end
of Friday night, they'd be sodrunk, they'd be swaying and bobbing
and weaving.
And I said, those are mylegless wonders.
And then it stuck.
And my team was Dirty Dick andthe leg was wonders after that.
(02:04):
I can appreciate that.
I think Leanne can, too.
I can.
So how did you make the jumpfrom a competitive barbecue team
into creating some of the besthot sauces in the world?
Well, actually, sauce camebefore the barbecue team.
Okay.
(02:25):
So I.
My family owned a house in theCaribbean, the island of Montserrat.
So for 30 years, we went andspent a lot of time in the Caribbean.
And we'd go shopping.
We.
You know, you live like thelocals when you're down there, right?
You have an open air marketevery Saturday.
(02:46):
So we always went and shopped,and there'd be like 20 ladies selling
their stuff.
They grew, and there wasalways peppers all over.
Habaneros, jalapenos, serranos.
And they all ate with peppers,and there was peppers on every table.
Pepper sauce.
(03:06):
And we slowly got into theswing of peppers with your food.
And we were all cooks.
My family owned restaurants,so we used to.
I said, I think I'll make hot sauce.
And I'd buy.
I bought a bunch of habanerosand I was making sauce.
(03:27):
You know, I kept making sauce,writing recipes and trying it, and
I actually developed it on theisland of Montserrat.
Wow.
The first one, the red one,Dirty Dick original.
That would be that one, Ithink, if you can see that.
Yeah, yeah.
(03:48):
So there's a lot of barbecuesauces, as you know.
I'm guessing there's got to beover a thousand different barbecue
sauces out there these days.
I mean, there is.
You can't go into it.
You can't even go in thehardware store and not see barbecue
sauces there.
(04:09):
Oh, yeah.
Hot sauces go hand in handwith that, but they're a little different.
When you started making asauce, was it the logical step for
you then to start selling it locally?
Or did you just try it withfriends and family or walk us through
that process?
All right, well, so I, I waswriting recipes and I stumbled upon
(04:33):
the.
My first one, I said, this is it.
I got the, I got the flavor down.
And how did I start?
I, like, I began cooking sauceand I needed one.
I helped my team when we, Ihad all these guys with me.
(04:57):
I had to pay for like four people.
So we had rooms, we had travel expenses.
Right.
I said, why don't we sell mysauce at a, at the booth?
And I had grandma there.
She was like 80 years old, andwe stuck her behind a table.
I came up with a label and Ilearned how to, how to, how to market
(05:19):
it.
I learned how to get anutritionist and do my label, and
so I learned all that stuff.
And basically we startedselling it at barbecue contest because
I wanted to make the 500 bucksto pay for the rub.
Oh, yeah.
I just wanted to pay for the rug.
I, I love the fact that youdid shameless promotion with your
(05:43):
grandmother.
I, I love that you're out front.
Everyone goes, wow, Danny's here.
We gotta buy sauce from her.
I mean, how can you turn downan 80 year old lady going, come over
here.
You want to try our sauce?
Exactly.
It works.
Did you ever meet, Meet her?
Leanne?
I don't recall meeting her.
(06:05):
I don't think she was ever in.
Where would we go?
Maryland.
Yeah.
Bel Air.
Used to come compete with your dad.
Yeah.
Wow.
So over the years, it's growna lot.
And so where are youcommercially now?
Well, now I have four sauces.
I'm working on my fifth.
(06:26):
I go ghost pepper sauce.
I've been working on that forover a year, so sales are good.
My Amazon, I sell over athousand bottles a month on Amazon.
That's great.
Right up there in top 20.
And I've got a lot of clients.
I sell to Australia, England,Denmark, Iceland, basically.
(06:51):
And I have a lot of accountsin Marathon.
I'm not in any markets, no big supermarkets.
So it's all.
It's all off brands and it'sall, you know, private distributors
who buy my stuff.
Is that tough with.
With hot sauces?
I mean, I know how.
I know how tough it is with,with rubs and barbecue sauces.
(07:13):
I dipped my toe in that watera long time ago and then went.
Ran away.
But is it.
Is it harder with hot saucesbecause they're not as commonly used?
Well, I think.
Because I call it Dirty Dick'sHot Sauce.
Right.
I think some people got turnedoff by.
Well, you can't help ifthey're prudes or whatever.
(07:35):
I could do about that, but Ithink I used to.
I pitched so many supermarketsand they just never pulled the trigger.
So I don't know if it's thename or I just didn't have the right
connections.
But I haven't been able to getin any big market chains.
I do a lot of private sales.
I wouldn't think anybody wouldbe offended by that name with.
(07:58):
All you gotta do is Turn onyour TV at 8:00 at night and you
hear much worse.
A lot worse than that.
Yeah.
And once you try it, I mean,just taste it.
Yeah, it's my favorite hotsauce by far.
That should do it.
But it doesn't do it for that.
I'm not just saying thatbecause he's my friend, but it seriously
(08:19):
is.
No, they're great sauces.
I mean, I've got the last.
He sent me a case or a dozenbottles and the ones I saved.
So when I knew I was going todo the show, I didn't open those.
The other one, some of themare already empty and, and like that.
So I really liked them.
But hot sauce just intriguesme because it's something that we've
(08:44):
had a lot of people on the show.
Let me back up a second, Dick.
We've had a lot of people onthe show talking about their barbecue
sauces and they, they say,well, you know, we started this sauce
in our family kitchen.
Typical story, great storieslike that.
But they get into the, the market.
Trying to get into the market,I think would be a better way to
(09:05):
say that.
They try to get into it andthen they find out how difficult
it is with stories morehorrendous than what you were just
saying.
You've pitched lots of markets.
Do you think that that's evergoing to change or.
Because now we're seeing theamalgamation of all these huge, like
Kroger's and Albertsons.
They're just, these chains aregetting bigger and bigger and it's
(09:28):
harder and harder, I think, toget product on the shelves.
I have, well, one distributorI've been selling to for years.
He called me a couple of weeks ago.
I didn't know what he was, whohe was.
He said, dick, I'm a lawyerand also.
And I am a food broker and Irepresent Walmart.
(09:52):
He said, and I'm gonna pitchyou to Walmart.
You know, you want 5%, whichis okay, but.
So that was the only timeanyone's ever said, I, I think I
can get you into a big chain.
And it hadn't happened yet,but he talked to me about it.
Was that recently?
(10:13):
Yeah, within the last month.
I guess.
They buy once a year.
Yeah, they actually sit downand shop sauces once a year.
So I got to wait for that,whatever that time is.
He said he'd get back to me.
Can you handle that kind of volume?
I doubt it.
Because he said, he said, howmany, how many sites do you have
(10:38):
making your sauce?
I said, just one.
He said, well, he said, MarieSharp ships.
He brokers hers.
She ships five pallets a month.
Five.
Not five pallets, five tractortrailer loads.
And, and that's like, youknow, 40, 40 pallets.
(11:02):
Right.
Times 20.
That's what she's shipping to them.
He said, are you gonna be ableto handle that?
I said, no.
Well, maybe he can get me intoone region.
Walmart may start you off,give you time to build up.
So if they like your product,they put up with you.
(11:25):
That's fair.
You grow up.
Yeah.
To what they want.
They start you in a likenortheast region.
And maybe you can handle onetractor trailer load, which is like
21 gallons.
That's a lot of sauce.
That's a lot of sauce.
But that's like, that would bewhere you start.
So once you get these guys,you gotta supply them.
(11:50):
You gotta have the, you gottahave the production facility.
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
You gotta, once you, if youtook that next step, you better be
ready.
So he was prepping me saying,you better think about this.
You may want to get anothermanufacturer to have two.
Wow.
(12:10):
If it happens.
I said, wow.
I didn't know that either.
Yeah.
We're going to take a quick break.
We're going to be back withRichard West Haver, Dirty Dick from
Dirty Dick's Hot Sauces rightafter this on the Nation.
Please stay with us.
(12:32):
Hey, everybody, it's Jeff here.
I want to tell you aboutsomething really cool.
Heritage steel cookware.
I just got mine.
I do a lot of cooking, andit's got five ply construction.
Stay cool handles.
It's titanium strengthened.
It's got all the great stuff.
Just go to HeritageSteel usand find out more.
You'll love it.
I guarantee it.
(13:04):
Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.
I'm JT along with LeanneWhippen, my co host, co pilot, Frank
friend, and hall of famer.
And today we're talking withRichard Westover, Dirty dicks from
Dirty Dick's Hot Sauces thatwe were talking about distribution
and stuff.
Did you.
Have you had any supply chainissues over the last few years?
A lot of businesses have.
(13:25):
Well, during COVID the glassdried up.
They weren't bringing in any glass.
So I scoured the countries.
I called every glass company Iknew, and I tried to find glass made
in America.
And I.
I have found a couple, and soI'm still buying from those guys,
(13:47):
but there was no glass coming in.
Nobody had glass, you know,local distributors.
What about the peppers and stuff?
The.
The produce, so to speak.
I could get peppers, you can't.
I always use red habaneros, soI specify that.
But it.
During COVID they wouldn't.
(14:08):
You couldn't get reds.
They'd say, well, you can havea box and mixed.
So it'd be coming from Mexicoand you could get them out of Mexico.
Most of my stuff is DominicanRepublic, so that's the normal supply
chain.
But they dried up.
They weren't shipping.
How long did it take them toget back on their feet?
(14:32):
Oh, it was touch and go for ayear and a half.
You'd get some, then it stopped.
You get some.
I kept scouring people, youknow, you keep calling.
And there were people thatgrew them, but they wouldn't sell
them to me.
Really.
Because I want the huts new.
(14:54):
The New York hot sauce show.
I won the world championshiptwice, and I won first place every
year.
So they just.
Just like in barbecue, theydon't like the guy who wins all the
time.
So there was a guy that madeNash, and he wouldn't.
He wouldn't tell me anything.
Wow.
Yeah.
He grew enough, but hewouldn't do it.
(15:16):
So he.
I couldn't get it from thelocal people.
Were those mostly like fromthe west coast and.
And glass guys from the.
From the west coast had glass.
But shipping to ship twopallets of glass on the west coast
might be over A thousand dollars.
Right.
And it was cost prohibitiveafter that.
(15:38):
Wow.
I don't.
I'm not sure that people.
The consumer thinks about that.
When they go to the store, they.
I have no idea what yourproducts cost at a retail level,
but if they.
Let's say they're $7 a bo andall of a sudden they're 8.50 a bottle,
all they think is that you'vejacked up the prices.
And it's not really you're doing.
(15:59):
It's the fact that you wereput in a bind with supply chain issues
and stuff, and somebody has topick that up.
Like the guys who buy, say,the guys who buy several pallets
from.
And I say, oh, I gotta go up 8 cents.
They fight me tooth and nail.
(16:20):
They won't even give me the 8 cents.
They don't want to do it.
That's really tough.
Once you set the price, theydon't ever want to hear it, that
you're going up.
Do you have to pay theshipping on that, too?
The freight?
They pay their own freight.
It's free on board BellowsFalls, Vermont, which is where I
make it.
(16:41):
Okay.
So I tell them that.
So they have to arrangeshipping, or I'll arrange it for
them and ship it to whereverthey are.
But they pay.
I don't pay shipping.
You ever have people ask you,how did somebody from the Northeast
get in the hot sauce business?
You don't think of Vermont andhot sauce, for example?
No.
(17:01):
No way.
Well, I live in Boston, but Imanufacture in Vermont because they
have the.
They have a lot less rules.
Food rules.
Like, Massachusetts is horrible.
So I.
It's cheaper for me tomanufacture up there.
So I do.
(17:23):
And no, people don't know.
People don't.
They don't understand.
Yeah, like mango puree.
So six cans used to be like 12 bucks.
It's now 22 at Restaurant Depot.
So that's, you know, pricesjust keep going.
And the guys who buy a lotdon't want to hear it.
(17:45):
Yeah.
They won't pay you.
They said, no, you don't wantto do it.
They won't.
They, like, hold you.
Hold you to it.
So you have to kind of eat alot of stuff.
Is it.
Is it important, Dick, to do,like you said, the.
The New York hot sauce show.
And I know that we have a hotsauce show.
I live in, just south ofPortland, Oregon.
(18:07):
There's a show here.
There's a big show in New Mexico.
Do you.
Do you hit all those shows?
No, I.
We used to go to A lot more shows.
I've been to the one in.
I've been to Texas, and theNew York show is closest to us, and
that was the big one in the beginning.
That was like, the big one.
(18:29):
So we've been there, like,probably 12 years.
I.
I had a boo.
I'm not going this year.
In two weeks is the show inNew York, and.
But I don't do too many anymore.
By the time you.
I take four people, the booth,all the sauce, pay for the rooms,
(18:51):
pay for the gas, pay for theentry fee, and even, you know, it's
like 3,000 bucks.
Right.
Generally, you don't sell.
You don't come close to them.
How do you.
How do you sample it?
They allow you to use littlespoons, like tiny spoons.
We.
We put it on chips.
(19:12):
Okay.
People grab a chip, and thenwe have a squeeze bottle and put
a drop on it, and that's howthey eat it.
The chips are.
The chips work better than I.
Yeah, I was wondering aboutthat, because I've done some food
shows.
I know Leanne's done a ton of them.
And each.
Each state has their ownregulations about what you can do.
(19:35):
And if you have to have a foodhandler's card or, you know, whatever
it is, they're all different.
To me, every place, every showis different.
And generally, if you use awooden spoon, you're safe everywhere.
It's where you start puttingit on food.
Yeah, putting it on corn chips.
We used to put it on cornchips because they were salty.
(19:58):
People liked it.
So that's.
If they let us, we do that.
But pretty much now it'swooden spoons, a plastic spoon.
Yeah, you would think,rationally thinking.
And that's.
But you would think that therewould be kind of a standardized practice
in food shows across the country.
(20:19):
Somebody would get togetherand say, we can do this and we can
do this, but you can't do this.
And so you always knew what toexpect when you went to a food show,
but they don't ever do that.
So different states, differenthealth departments is the.
It depends on the healthdepartment guy.
Oh, absolutely.
We're going to take another break.
We're going to be back withDirty Dick from Dirty Dick's Hot
(20:41):
Sauce right after this.
Stay with us.
Hey, everybody, it's JT And Ihave eaten.
If you've ever looked at me,you know that.
But I have eaten seafood allover the world, and I can tell you
there's no place better thanhere in Oregon and our Dungeness
(21:04):
crab.
If you Want to learn moreabout Oregon Dungeness crab?
Just go to oregondungeness.organd find out how to cook it, how
to catch it, where to buy it,and the sustainability of what they're
doing there in the Oregon Crab Commission.
Check it out.
(21:29):
Welcome back to the Nation.
That's Barbecue Nation again.
We'd like to thank the folksat Painterdale's Natural Beef and
the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission.
I have to tell Leanne this.
It'll upset her a little bit,but I'll tell her anyway.
Oh, Friday were filming aninterview close up at the golf course,
and I get to feed them crabcocktails again.
(21:50):
Oh, I'm jealous.
Best crab in the world.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Have you ever had Dungenesscrab, Dick, from the West Coast?
I have.
I've had it.
I love it.
Once in a while.
I sell it locally.
Yeah, it's great stuff.
(22:12):
It's great stuff, and we'refortunate to get our hands on it
when we need it.
And I.
I've rarely found a personthat would say, oh, no, I don't like
that.
I'm not sure if I've everfound a person that says, no, I don't
like that.
But Restaurant Depot, if youbuy a, you know, 28 ounces of crab,
you can pay up to 50 bucks for it.
(22:32):
If you get.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
It's like when.
What would you tell people,Dick, that have.
I don't want to call themdelusions of.
Delusions of grandeur, but they're.
They're working on sauces.
I have a friend of mine, shelives in Virginia.
(22:54):
Her and her husband made not ahot sauce, but more of a glaze kind
of a barbecue sauce.
It was excellent stuff, butthey kind of got their butt handed
to them when they were tryingto go through the process that you
explained earlier.
They had to have a commercialkitchen make it.
This is when they were tryingto get into the retail business.
(23:15):
They really couldn't do it athome, you know, and then they had
to try to find a distributor,and then the labels and it's a.
It's a big, long process.
And I'm always curious about that.
Somebody like you who's hadsuccess with your sauces, what would
you advise them to do?
Well, the first thing I doafter they have a recipe, everyone's
got one, right.
(23:36):
Is they have to learn the foodrules, the federal food rules.
When you're making a sauce,you have to learn about ph.
It's like, my sauces have alow enough ph that they don't need
to be refrigerated.
Right.
And they're more shelf stable.
And I tell people to learn allthose rules because you're not going
(23:58):
to be able to make your sauceunless you know about it.
You know, you don't want to.
If you can get away with itnot being refrigerated, that's a
big deal.
But you got to understand howto do production, food production.
And so there's a lot, youknow, they have rules around here
in New England.
Cornell runs it, runs it forthe federal government.
(24:20):
You have to deal with Cornell.
Are they reasonable?
Yeah, they're reasonable.
When they upset, they'll tellyou what to do.
The PH that's involved, peopledon't even think about the PH of
their sauce.
Right.
Whether it needs to be refrigerated.
If they send it to Cornell,they tell them.
(24:41):
They tell you, boy, this hasto be boiled 185 degrees for 32 minutes.
And they explain to people theproduction scheduled for their product.
Because.
Do they charge you for that?
No, they don't charge.
That's amazing.
They work with the feds.
(25:02):
Somehow they feel like thefed, the wing of the federal food
regulators.
And I think each region hastheir own company.
And I know out here, out here.
Out here, it's Oregon Statebecause they've got a big, huge food
ag department, food sciencesstuff, and they do the.
(25:23):
The ph stuff.
And they also put on classesfor people.
No, you can learn it.
Yeah, because I started in a.
In a starter kitchen, and theyhave kitchens that'll teach you how
to make your sauce.
And it's like community.
Community kitchens.
(25:44):
Right.
So if you find a communitykitchen, there'll be someone there
that'll help you if you wantto put in the work.
Oh, absolutely.
What's your favorite sauce outof the four you've got on the market?
I like the red.
That was my first one.
Yeah.
Actually, I like them all.
I like all the children.
(26:04):
So I hate.
Can't pick your favorite.
Right.
Red, like, is.
Plus it sells like five, eighttimes more than the others, you know,
so you gotta like that part.
I think.
Leanne.
Don't you like the Caribbeanone, Leanne?
(26:26):
Yes.
Yeah.
It's like each one I've beento Barbados and I ate their sauce
and I said, well, I'm going tomake a barbado sauce, and that's
the Caribbean one.
I got that from Barbados.
And then my Peachy green, Isaid, I think I'm gonna write a recipe
for spicy relish to put it onyour Hot dogs.
(26:48):
And that's.
That's how I got peachy green.
And then the chipotle was.
I said, I'm gonna make aMexican sauce.
So that's kind of how I lookat each one, you know?
So I kind of.
I really like each one of thembecause I work on them so long.
Once I find that it's.
This is it.
(27:09):
You think that.
You think that people.
When they.
When they think of hot sauces.
Dick.
They think it's Tabasco.
Right.
That's.
Everyone knows the best.
Yeah.
Or if you're out here in thewest and we've got a lot of Hispanic
influence out here, what isit, the pico.
(27:30):
I'm not saying it right, butthey've got two or three that are
out here that if you go to aMexican restaurant, they're always
on the table, or if you askthem for a hot sauce, that's what
they will bring you.
But do you think people arehesitant sometimes to expand their
taste palettes and their tastebuds by looking at it?
(27:52):
People are afraid of the heat.
Yeah.
They go, oh, my God, how hotis this?
This is always the first question.
And that's why I never made mystuff hotter than medium, because
I wanted them to try it.
Yeah.
A lot of people can't handlethe heat, and I think that's got
(28:13):
a lot to do with it.
Well, I know.
I know.
Is Frank's Red Hot andTabasco, and that's west.
It's called Topatio, I think.
Yes.
Yeah.
And that's all they know is what.
Because that's what's on every tape.
Like, the little guys.
We never get our sauce onrestaurant tables.
(28:34):
Never get in a chain.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
You'd have to give it away, probably.
And how would you get it on inRestaurant Depot?
Because that's where everyone buys.
So I pitched Restaurant Depot,and they go, what did you say that
name was?
(28:54):
And I tell the lady, and shegoes, no, no, thanks.
So I know that I get.
You didn't even get by the.
If it was Freddy's Hot Sauce,you might have tried it, you know,
but she didn't even want totry it.
Said, no.
What if you made it?
Hair loss.
Yeah.
What.
What if you made a one thatsaid clean dicks or something?
(29:17):
Yeah.
I actually changed the nameonce, and I thought a clean dick,
you know, kind of a goof.
But it's a lot of effort justto have a goof.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Go through the wholerigamarole to change it.
No.
(29:38):
Oh, I Love it.
I love it.
We're talking with him,Richard Westhaver, commonly known
in food circles as Dirty Dicksfrom Dirty Dick's Hot Sauces.
And you can find them at Amazon.
You can find them around the country.
Are they more prevalent on theeast coast than they are out my way?
(30:00):
Yeah.
Because I have a distributorin Vermont.
I have two in Vermont.
And they like really local stuff.
So all the tourist traps havemy sauce.
Yeah.
Because made in Vermont,that's a big deal.
It is.
I don't know about the rest ofthe country because I sell it to
people, but I don't know whereit goes.
Right.
(30:20):
Like people say, hey, I was inFlorida and I.
And Key West.
I was in this store.
I had your stuff in it.
And so I don't even know whereit comes from.
We're going a lot of the timebecause they don't tell you.
Yeah.
So I don't even know.
It's all over, though.
It's all over.
(30:41):
That.
That.
When I was doing the rubs andstuff a long time ago, that happened
to me.
My wife and I were travelingand we stopped in this little town
for the night and we.
Next day we got up, went, hadbreakfast, and we were kind of looking
around.
We walked into this little,like you said, a tourist trap store
and walked and.
And they had some displays.
(31:02):
And on the.
On one of the displays therewas my rubs.
And I don't know how in thehell they got there.
You know, in southeast Idaho.
I never sold them to anybodyin southeast Idaho, so I have no
idea.
How it gets around.
Yeah.
So I can't tell people.
They say, well, I'm in Chicago.
Who.
Where can I get your sauce?
I'm saying you have to get iton Amazon or on my website because
(31:26):
I don't know, you know, so that's.
Has the business been good toyou, Dick?
Yeah, overall, it's pretty good.
Yeah.
I think.
I think a lot of people get disheartened.
They may have a great product.
Not taking anything away fromtheir product.
It may be fantastic.
But they're not used to theslog, the long slog, if you will,
(31:49):
it takes to really get yourproducts on the shelves.
There's a lot more competitionout there these days than there was
10 years ago.
So that's when you have tostart with the shows.
When you start.
Start out, you have to go tothose shows because there's no other
(32:10):
way to get your stuff up.
Yeah.
So that's what people have to do.
Like, we did a lot more showsthan we do now.
And I don't know how elseyou're going to get it out.
There's no other way to taste it.
Like, we.
When we.
We used to sell the WholeFoods, and they would make you come
in and sample it.
(32:32):
So they'd make you do it?
Yeah, absolutely.
You had to sample, actually,in the stores.
They'd say, well, they got theguy from Hingham.
They got my store off the street.
They'd say, look, I want youin here every six months.
And you'd have to go bringyour table and your little setup,
and you'd have to stay thereabout four hours.
(32:53):
Wow.
If.
If you wanted to keep yourstuff in.
In the store.
Yeah, that's what they do.
Yep.
Absolutely.
We're gonna take another break.
We're gonna come back and wrapup the show with Dick Westhaver from
Dirty Dick's Hot Sauces rightafter this.
Stay with us.
(33:19):
Hey, everybody, it's jt.
You know, I talk about PaintedHills all the time, and we always
say beef the way nature intended.
But it's more than thatbecause each bite of Painted Hills
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Put a big, bright smile onyour face, and whoever's at your
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And you can thank me for that later.
(33:40):
Just go topaintedhillsbeef.com and find out
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You won't regret it.
Hey, everybody, J.T.
Here.
I want to tell you about theHammerstahl knives.
Hammer Stahl combines Germansteel with beautiful and functioning
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They're part of the HeritageSteel group, which also does their
pots and pans.
So go to heritagesteel us.
(34:00):
Check out the Hammer Stahl knives.
If you're really into cooking,I think you're really going to like
them.
Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.
I'm JT along with LeanneWhippin, and today we're talking
with formerly known as RichardWesthaver, now known as Dirty Dick
(34:24):
from Dirty Dick's Hot Sauces.
Give us your website realquick, too, Dick, so people can hear
it.
Www.dirtydickshotsauce.comThere you go.
And they can find it on Amazon?
Yes, it's on Amazon.
Is there any other retailoutlets on online that they can find
(34:47):
it?
You know, you can get it.
People sell it to Walmart.
They sell it to ebay.
You can get it on ebay, Walmart.
I don't even know who gives itto them, but it's on there.
Well, because people askpermission to be on Amazon, right?
Because you can kind ofcontrol Amazon.
(35:11):
For a while, they would, theytook my.
Another thing, the piracy.
They took the barcode offDirty Dick's hot Sauce, and they
were selling T shirts toAmazon with my.
Oh, wow, I've never heard of that.
I got.
Yeah, I didn't know till Iwanted to.
(35:32):
They have a thing calledtransparency, where you wouldn't
let anyone to sell your sauce.
You could, like, lock everyone out.
And I found out about allThose guys, like 20 people selling
my stuff that I didn't evenknow about, because you can't tell
who it is.
(35:53):
Like, if you go on, it'll sayJB Industries.
There's no way to know whothose guys are because everyone has
a different name.
Right.
So you have to be, you know,you really have to.
If it matters, you know, ifyou care and just.
But that's, There's a lot ofpiracy, too.
You have to be careful.
(36:15):
It's kind of like the name ofthis show, Barbecue Nation, and I
own the trademark to it, butall the time I turn around and find
something that somebody that'sgot a different podcast, a different
show, maybe they're makingrubs, whatever, and they don't bother
to check, or if they do, theydon't care.
(36:36):
And so we have to write them acease and desist letter.
You know, haven't had to golegally beat up anybody yet, but
it's a pain in the butt to do that.
I trade backed mine, and thenthe lawyer does this, the search.
Right.
And then they get back to youand go, oh, there's this guy here
and that one there.
But he's not, he's not trademarked.
(36:58):
So I have a trademark now, butit didn't matter for Amazon.
There were a lot of peopleusing my name, my numbers.
It's tough out there.
Yeah.
How do you think that yourtime in, when you had a barbecue
team, how did that in the longrun affect what you created in the
(37:22):
sauces?
Well, I was cooking all thetime and writing recipes because
I always wanted to win thebarbecue contest.
And I, I, it was kind of aseparate deal because I never put
hot sauce on my barbecue.
So that was like a separate thing.
Right.
(37:43):
That I.
The hot sauce never gotcrossed over to barbecue.
But you can't submit hot foodto the judges.
No, no.
They'd have a.
You know, I never had that inmind when I was writing recipes.
Well, that makes sense.
Yeah.
You know, and the profileshave changed.
(38:06):
I don't compete.
Leanne certainly knows moreabout this than I do, but seems to
me that from the events thatI've gone to, the profiles have changed
even over the last five, eightyears as to what's winning, if you
will.
It seems like the sweeterpeople kept up in the sweet taste.
(38:30):
And that seems to be what's going.
When I judge.
Seems to be a lot of peopleusing the same sauce.
Like, they don't.
You make their own stuff.
They use commercial stuff.
Right.
I don't want to say their name.
Well, you can say their names out.
(38:52):
And, you know, with hotsauces, it's different.
You know, there's a lot ofcrappy hot sauces.
Oh, yeah, Yeah.
A lot of horrible ones.
So those guys, they drop bythe wayside, you know, there's nobody's.
Once you try it, if it's notany good, then I.
Yeah, they're not.
Going to buy it again.
Right.
(39:12):
You can get them once, butyou'll never get repeats.
I can't tell you how manysamples people have sent me over
the years since I started thisshow that the lid came off, I tasted
it and it went away.
You know, I.
It just wasn't any good.
I didn't.
(39:32):
And I try to be very nice topeople about stuff.
You know, I don't want to beharsh with them if I can avoid it,
but there's an awful lot ofthem that never made it past that
first little taste.
You know, a lot of peopledon't know enough about food that
they don't know what's good.
Yeah, they, you know, theyhaven't done enough with food.
(39:54):
They don't understand what's agood sauce, and they don't, you know,
they don't understand it orthey try to copy someone.
They just don't have the skill.
Did you work in therestaurants with your family when
you were younger?
I grew up behind the counter.
Our restaurant, we had two,and I never really cooked.
(40:17):
I was too young to cook in the restaurants.
Yeah.
But I was always in.
In them.
And then we just had arestaurant family.
Everyone cooked.
My brother went to Cornell.
He.
He opened up his own place andI used to hang out there.
But, no, I never really.
(40:38):
I cooked in a few, but not.
Were they in the Boston area?
Yeah, yeah, they were in Boston.
My brother had one in Hingham.
That's where his place was.
That's a tough business, too,as Leanne can attest to, and anybody
that.
And I can attest to.
You've been in the restaurant business?
(40:58):
They were never home.
That's all.
I.
Mm.
Yeah.
My mother worked the night shift.
My father Worked the day shift.
So 5am to 5, let's say 5 to 5.
And then she'd go in.
They were open till they werethere across the street from a theater.
They were open till two in themorning, so she wouldn't make it
(41:20):
home before a.m.
wow.
That was their life.
So I knew I'm never going tobe in a restaurant because I don't
want to live that way.
But I got the, you know, Ilove to cook.
And we all cooked.
And so I took it out onbarbecue contests and making hot
(41:41):
sauce.
So that's where it kind ofaffected me.
I knew what wasn't the recipe.
I wasn't going to have one.
If you could do one thingdifferent in the process of doing
your hot sauces, what would it be?
If anything.
I'd be.
(42:01):
Try to be better at marketing.
You have to learn a lot aboutmarketing because you waste a lot
of time flubbing around tryingto get your sauce out.
You don't.
You don't get anywhere.
Like, you call a local stopand shop.
Hi, I'd like to send you my sauce.
You know, nothing ever happens.
You could.
(42:22):
And there's got to be a better way.
Did they.
I'm curious about this, too,because we're.
We're just about done withthis part of the show, Dick.
But.
All right.
When I was doing the rubs, Ihad a couple.
The larger stores say, okay,here's what we want you to do.
We want you to send us fourcases of each.
(42:43):
I had four like you have.
I had four.
They.
Four cases of each.
But we want you to send themto these 10 stores and.
And then we want you to pay back.
Then it was $5,000 a quarterfor their in ad inserts.
And the price just kept goingup before you ever.
(43:04):
You never sold one bottle yetbefore all this.
And then they wanted you tocome in and do the store demos.
And so I just kind of like,said, no, I can't do that.
It was.
It was pretty crazy.
Well, that's how they keep thelittle guy out of there.
Yeah.
You know, that's how theyqualify you.
Yeah.
(43:24):
Got the money to do it.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, on a totally separatenote, the Jack Daniels contest is
coming up soon.
Did you know Jeff, that dirtydick hands out the magic hickory
nets with Artie?
But last year was last year.
Yeah, no more.
(43:44):
Yep.
Yep.
I talked to Artie the otherday, and he's got a hickory nut for
you, Leanne.
He already sent it to me.
Did he?
Okay.
Yes.
Yeah, he's on it.
Yeah.
He's got that.
Well, anyway, we need to getout of.
Out of here for the radio partof this.
No, wait.
No, you're not.
You're not going anywhere yet.
(44:05):
You're not going any more minutes.
Yeah, but.
Richard Westhaver from DirtyDick's Hot Sauce.
Thank you, man.
I appreciate it.
It's great to talk to you.
Thank you for asking me to beon your show.
No problem.
We will be back next week withanother edition of Barbecue Nation.
Until then, go out, try somejigs hot sauce.
(44:26):
Go online and find it at DirtyDick Sauce.
Seriously, my favorite hot sauce.
And I'm not just saying that.
And if people buy it and saysomething different, I would.
I would be totally surprised.
No, definitely.
Yep.
I agree.
I agree.
All right.
Thanks for being with us.
Remember our motto.
Turn it, don't burn it.
Take care, everybody.
(44:46):
Barbecue Nation is produced byjtsd, LLC Productions in association
with Salem Media Group.
All rights reserved.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.