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An Interview with T-Rev’s Stiff Willi Chili

hotsauce | Sep 24, 2010 | 0 comments

T-Rev’s Stiff Willi Chili™ (http://www.stiffwilli.com) is a new fiery foods brand dedicated to merging fun times with great food. As you can see by my logo, it’s pretty obvious that I think you’ll find my products exciting and delicious!

The company was launched following my victory at the 2009 DC101 Chili Cook-Off (ICS Red), a prestigious regional chili cookoff/rock concert held every May in Washington, DC that draws upwards of 30,000-plus partiers each year and benefits the National Kidney Foundation. Though chili cookoffs are highly subjective in nature, I figured there had to be something to the fact that I won the first cookoff I ever entered, so I decided to start manufacturing this award-winning spice mix. It was released in September 2009.

Of course, as a chef — and a fairly obsessive one at that — my goal at the outset was to provide a complete seasoning blend that would allow even the most inexperienced cooks to whip up the best batch of chili they’ve ever had.

As a result of my DC victory, I qualified automatically for the 2009 ICS World’s Championship Chili Cookoff, which was held last October in Charleston, W.V., so this provided the perfect opportunity to put my newly-released spice mix to the test. Quite simply, I figured if I was gonna try to sell this stuff, I had to put my money where my mouth was — so I used my manufactured spice mix (and the exact recipe printed on the bottle) for the chili I was required to provide for the crowd at the world championship. I subsequently won People’s Choice (Red Chili), beating out 161 of the world’s best red chili cooks.

For the past year, I’ve conducted local chili promos on virtually a weekly basis in and around southern Maryland, and at times I’ve literally traveled the country to advertise my spice mix and hand out samples of free chili. I’ve been to It’s F’n Hot (http://www.itsfnhot.com/) in Park City, UT; Peppers of Key West (http://bothwell.typepad.com/stiffwillichili/2010/03/can-i-go-back-to-key-west-already.html); and Buffalo, NY, where my friends and I hooked up for a Bills/Dolphins tailgate (http://bothwell.typepad.com/stiffwillichili/2009/12/billsgate-2009.html) with Conklin’s Bar ‘n’ Grill, a bunch of maniacs featured on Tailgate Warriors with Guy Fieri. It helps to have a buddy with a four-seat plane, so big props to my boy Brady.

So, now that I’m broke, it’s a great time to place your first order and see what the hype over T-Rev’s Stiff Willi Chili is all about! We even launched T-Rev’s Stiff Willi Chili Pepper Sauce over the summer for all you hot sauce enthusiasts who want to kick up your chili, energize your eggs, or titillate your tacos! (But don’t let me stop you there — it’s also amazing in bloody marys and on pizza, nachos, chicken …)

In short, people should buy my products because my primary aim is to provide only the finest seasonings, sauces, and customer service that you can’t wait to tell friends and family about.

How long have you been in business?

T-Rev’s Stiff Willi Chili (the brand) made its debut in May 2009 at the DC101 Chili Cook-Off, and our spice mix was launched in September 2009. If I can overcome Maryland’s oppressive personal and business taxes, I anticipate sticking with this for as long as my customers will have me.

How did you get started?

This is a pretty funny story. I live in Maryland and for years I’d heard about the DC101 Chili Cook-Off in Washington, DC but had rarely given it a second thought. Until late 2008. As a huge fan of cooking and eating in general, I decided I might as well try my hand at a chili cook-off and see how well my recipe stacks up against all the big guys (the 2008 DC101 Chili Cook-Off was won by Jim Parker, owner of the Hard Times Café (http://www.hardtimes.com/), a small empire of chili parlors in the DC metro area). So I signed up for the 2009 DC regional chili cook-off and it was on.

But I needed a team name and logo for the competition. In February 2009 I gathered up some friends who were interested in being my sous chefs for the cookoff and we had a brainstorming session in my kitchen with some bourbon and a 30-pack of beer. At some point I blurted out the name “T-Rev’s Stiff Willi Chili” — I think the “stiff willi” part is pretty self-explanatory (if a little immodest given that at this point I’d never even entered a chili cookoff, much less won one), and “T-Rev” was a throwback to my nickname in college.

With the DC101 Chili Cook-Off a couple months away I started sketching out a chile pepper mascot. I gave the draft to my brother Erik, who finalized it, and then sent the artwork to my friend Molly, a graphic artist for Chesapeake Custom Embroidery (http://www.cceink.com/), who synthesized everything into the logo you see today.

Since I’m always looking for entrepreneurial opportunities that will allow me to work for myself one day, I took the leap to manufacturing and distributing my own line of chili products after winning the DC101 Chili Cook-Off. Here’s to hoping this is it!

How many spicy products do you manufacture and what are their names?

Currently I am the founder of T-Rev’s Stiff Willi Chili Spice Mix and T-Rev’s Stiff Willi Chili Pepper Sauce. I don’t want to divulge too many secrets, but next year I’m hoping to release a Cajun and/or seafood seasoning to add to the spice line and a ghost pepper sauce to complement the hot sauce line.

What is your best selling product and why do you think it sells better than your others?

It’s hard to assess the hows and whys with only a year under my belt, but T-Rev’s Stiff Willi Chili Pepper Sauce has a higher sales rate than my spice mix does. I think this is largely due to the facts that 1) I’m able to wholesale the pepper sauce through Peppers (http://www.peppers.com/cube/) in Rehoboth Beach, DE, which has helped to open up the product to many potential customers across the U.S., and 2) hot sauce already enjoys an established niche market.

I also think people (understandably) associate my spice mix only with chili, which is a seasonal food almost everywhere outside of Texas. So while I’m noticing spice mix sales pick up a bit here in Maryland now that we’re into football season and cooler weather, I have a lot of work ahead of me in convincing customers that they can use it to season everything from fries, veggies, and seafood to taco meat, burgers, and steak, and even use it as a spice rub for pork and chicken.

Aside from the great flavor, the best attribute of my spice mix is that it’s healthy. It’s made only with premium chile peppers and all-natural ingredients, and I don’t cheapen it with salt or fillers.

How did you come up with the product names and label concepts?

For the story on how I came up with the brand name, please refer to the section on how I got started.

As for a product’s label, this is the first (and sometimes only) chance you get to convince shoppers to try your product. I spend a lot of money giving away free samples of food you can make with my products, but it’ll take quite awhile to reach a million customers in person. So you have to have a great label because, for the most part, your product is sitting on a shelf intermingled with dozens of others. In my view, a great label begins with a great brand name/logo, which I think I have — it tends to get a lot of stares, and it seems to be a pretty good conversation starter — and the label needs to be bright, colorful, and attractive.

In all honesty, I had some technical difficulties with the design of the spice mix label. The colors dulled when the printer converted the original design file from RGB to CMYK (color families), issues that thankfully were resolved with the design of my pepper sauce label. I suppose this is the nature of the beast when you start a new company, so hopefully your readers will overlook this and decide to give my products a try. I promise they won’t be disappointed once they put them to the real test! That said, my spice mix label will be brightened on the next label run, which should occur fairly soon.

Finally, in addition to aesthetic value, I think labels need to be practical and informational. My spice mix label includes my award-winning chili recipe from the 2009 world championship cookoff, a short description of the product itself, and contact information (including my website, stiffwilli.com (http://www.stiffwilli.com)). The pepper sauce label contains nutritional information and has a succinct yet powerful product description, and my company website is plastered right on the front underneath the logo.

How do you come up with the recipes?

As a self-taught chef, I’ve spent many late nights and weekends over the years experimenting with a combination of many different ingredient combinations and cooking techniques. So, most of my recipes have their genesis in spontaneity, creativity, and many hours of studying cooking shows on television.

As for my spice mix itself, I spent about three months (and several hundred dollars) mixing different spice combinations and cooking batch upon batch of chili until I got the entire package just right. In fact, even on the day of the 2009 DC101 Chili Cook-Off, I used an experimental spice mixture that I’d never tried before! (Suffice to say, that’s the one I stuck with as I went to market with this product.)

What is your favorite sauce made by someone else?

This is a tough one. Believe it or not, I don’t consider myself a “chilihead” or a hot sauce aficionado. Don’t get me wrong, I love spicy food and hot sauces. But I didn’t enter the DC cookoff because I have a passion for chili cookoffs per se; I approached it as a means to evaluate my own cooking skills against some pretty reputable opponents. (And with a wife and toddler who both keep me plenty busy around the house, it was a great excuse for a weekend party!)

That said, as a native Buffalonian I’ve always loved Frank’s Red Hot, the secret ingredient used in the original Buffalo Wings. And I say this despite the fact that T-Rev’s Stiff Willi Chili Pepper Sauce is pretty fantastic on wings in its own right.

Additionally, I’m a big fan of Cattlemen’s BBQ sauce (http://www.cattlemensbbqsauce.com/). I add apple cider vinegar to this to make an out-of-this world “homemade” sauce for pulled pork and brisket. Don’t worry, I’ve included the recipe.

How do you sell the majority of your products? (through supermarkets, distributors, wholesale or direct)

The majority of my products are sold in grocery stores and small retail shops and restaurants in southern Maryland, though Peppers has found decent success (knock wood) moving my pepper sauce to several of its best customers across the country. This is a work in progress, but the wholesale team at Peppers has really taken a liking to this product, noting that the pepper sauce has gotten a lot of positive feedback with regard to its label and flavor.

In addition to brick and mortar shops, my spice mix and pepper sauce are also available online via my website, stiffwilli.com (http://www.stiffwilli.com). So I always appreciate online exposure from sites like hotsauceaddict.com.

Do you have a recipe or two that you would like to share?

T-Rev’sStiff Willi Chili™
Stiff Willi Chili’s Baby Back Ribs Recipe