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<item><title><![CDATA[The Growing Popularity of Spicy Food Challenge Videos]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/the-growing-popularity-of-spicy-food-challenge-videos</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[challenge, food, hot ones, Hot Wings, spicy, youtube]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill Moore]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 11 Oct 2018 04:00:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/the-growing-popularity-of-spicy-food-challenge-videos-241898.jpg?v=1587649689</sr:image><description><![CDATA[
Years ago you probably had to make it to a festival or expo to watch spicy food challengers battle it out. No longer, though, do you have to even leave your own home to see people sweating it out over some of the hottest peppers and hottest hot sauce on the planet. All it takes is a quick online search to find countless videos of challengers all hoping to be the next viral Internet sensation.
Perhaps inspired by the allure of the popular web series “Hot Ones”, people all across the globe are filming their own challenges, and some of them are seriously over the top! While celebrities are signing on for their own turns in the hot seat, you hardly have to be famous to earn your five minutes of fame in a YouTube spicy food challenge. From spicy ramen noodles to spicy pepper challenges, it seems a growing population is definitely up for the challenge. While some challenges, such as the “Fire Noodle Challenge” are well documented with some basic rules and somewhat predictable outcomes, there are also Internet video challenges solely focused on an individual does of heat, including the “chili pepper challenge” and the “ghost pepper challenge”. There’s even been a hot pepper challenge aimed at raising awareness for ALS.
The thing about hot sauce and hot pepper challenges are that anyone can do the challenge, and anyone can post it on sites such as YouTube for free. Some challengers even make money off those same videos. Of course, you can always do your own spicy food challenge. All it takes is an extremely hot, hot sauce or hot pepper. Choose your favorite, and get ready for some intense heat! Whether for fame or for fortune, it seems spicy food challenge videos are here to stay, and likely only getting hotter!]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[People pay hundreds for a bottle of this hot sauce New York Post]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/people-pay-hundreds-for-a-bottle-of-this-hot-sauce</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[Mad Dog 357 Plutonium hot sauce, New York Post]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 21 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/people-pay-hundreds-for-a-bottle-of-this-hot-sauce-new-york-post-325638.jpg?v=1614905187</sr:image><description><![CDATA[New York Post 
Living 


By Michael Kaplan
April 20, 2018

For true hot sauce lovers, no condiment is too hot — or too expensive.
Take the fans of Mad Dog 357 Plutonium hot sauce. Lovers of that wacky tabasco pay $100 per ounce for the pepper extract, which is so spicy that it can induce crying, cramping and an inability to stand upright.
“It takes 1,000 chili peppers to make 1 ounce” of the super-hot sauce, David Ashley, owner of Ashley Food Company, tells The Post. Ingest a pinhead’s worth of the body-numbing stuff, “and your tongue will hurt. Some idiot gargled with a whole bottle. People who do stuff like that usually throw up.”
 
 
 
 
 Link to Original Article


]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Celebrating 25 Years of Hot Sauce Wizardry, Ashley Food Company Dials up the Heat With Mad Dog 357 Gold Edition]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/celebrating-25-years-of-hot-sauce-wizardry-ashley-food-company-dials-up-the-heat-with-mad-dog-357-gold-edition</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[25th Anniversary, ghost pepper, Gold, reaper pepper, Scorpion Peppers]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 02 Dec 2015 16:40:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/celebrating-25-years-of-hot-sauce-wizardry-ashley-food-company-dials-up-the-heat-with-mad-dog-357-gold-edition-735046.jpg?v=1587648839</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Celebrating 25 Years of Hot Sauce Wizardry, Ashley Food Company Dials up the Heat With Mad Dog 357 Gold Edition
Dec 01, 2015, 08:30 ET from Ashley Food Company
SUDBURY, Mass., Dec. 1, 2015,/PRNewswire/ -- Featuring all-natural, locally grown varieties of some of the world's hottest peppers, Mad Dog 357 Gold Edition is Ashley Food Company's way to celebrate 25 years in business. The Gold Edition gives hot sauce aficionados more of what they want – high heat and unforgettable flavor. Every 5-ounce bottle also comes with a custom gold bullet keychain and a tasting spoon. Ashley Food Company has built its reputation on handcrafted, small batches of category-defining hot sauces, and Mad Dog 357 Gold Edition adds to that already great tradition.
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20151130/291764Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20151130/291765
As company founder David Ashley recalls, "When I first tried the new Mad Dog 357 Gold Edition, it was like a forest fire lit up my tongue, and then I broke into a cold sweat. This sauce burns like nothing else and takes rarity to a new level. 'Gold' seemed like the perfect name for this unique recipe."
While the Gold Edition takes its name from the original, award-winning Mad Dog 357 hot sauce, the recipe is entirely new. Kicking the intensity up to 11, the recipe is a careful blend of Carolina Reaper, Scorpion and Ghost peppers. With real, locally grown peppers as the main ingredients, Mad Dog 357 Gold Edition boasts an authentic taste – and a little goes a long way. Objectively speaking, the sauce is among the hottest on the market. A generous infusion of 9 million Scoville Plutonium Extract brings the finished sauce up to a blistering 1 million Scovilles.
Growing ingredients locally enables Ashley Food Company to develop unique flavors, while also offering a level of consistency and quality control that most hot sauces cannot match. Perhaps most importantly, growing locally means the company is able to offer its complete lineup of flavors all year.
Ashley Food Company is looking forward to another banner year in 2016. The team's pepper-growing endeavor has proven to be a great success, with over 7,000 pounds of exotic chilies harvested. "After 3 years of tasting and farming chilies," Ashley adds, "I tested one of the new Chocolate Reaper crosses we are working on, and my face was numb for 30 minutes."
Products in development for 2016 include two new chili purees – one made with Naga Morich and Ghost peppers, and another with Carolina Reaper peppers. Ashley Food Company also produces pepper extracts, mild hot sauces, pepper powders and pods, and hot sauce gift packs.
About Ashley Food Company
David Ashley founded the Ashley Food Company in 1991. But Mad Dog was born five years earlier in David's Brighton, Massachusetts kitchen. Glowing reviews and multiple national hot sauce awards followed the development of their hand-crafted artisanal Mad Dog sauces. The acclaim came with collaborative inquiries from rock stars Joe Perry of Aerosmith and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead. Together, they produced products such as Joe Perry's Rock Your World Boneyard Brew Hot Sauce and a line of Wok Sauces with Bob Weir. The Ashley Food Company still uses only the finest all-natural ingredients, importing peppers and spices from all over the world as well as growing them locally for the hottest sauces you can stand – and some that are much hotter than that.
Contact:David AshleyAshley Food Company, Inc.PO Box 912Sudbury, MA 01776800-61-SAUCE
SOURCE Ashley Food Company]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mad Dog 357 Reaper Sriracha Sauce]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/mad-dog-357-reaper-sriracha-sauce</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[Carolina Reaper, Mad Dog 357 Reaper Sriracha Hot Sauce, sriracha]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 28 Mar 2015 15:46:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/mad-dog-357-reaper-sriracha-sauce-830606.jpg?v=1587651136</sr:image><description><![CDATA[SUDBURY, Mass.Nov. 25, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Ever tasted a dash of Sriracha and wished there was a lot more bite to this delicious sauce? It has finally happened. The folks over at Ashley Food Company have mixed their incredibly successful Mad Dog range with the popular Sriracha sauce. The result, Mad Dog 357 Reaper Sriracha Sauce, is a powerful mix of an incredible burn with the wonderful sweetness that only chilies and garlic can create.
Known for their award-winning hot sauces, Ashley Foods were not ready to pass up the opportunity to blend a new, ridiculously fiery sauce. But when you want to transform expectations in the hot sauce market, you have got to think outside the box, or rather outside the pepper. So, they turned away from the milder, more traditional chilies and went straight for the big one. The Mad Dog 357 Reaper Sriracha Sauce includes the world's hottest pepper, the Carolina Reaper. This sauce is not meant to tiptoe across your tongue the way other Sriracha sauces will do; this one will pounce. And you won't need to add a lot to get that effect either.
According to David Ashley, the founder of Ashley Food Company, "I've always appreciated the small kick that comes with Sriracha sauce, but it was always the flavor of the garlic that struck me. It's difficult to get chilies to release their sweetness when they are brimming with capsaicin, and that's the beauty of Sriracha." But, obviously, Ashley Foods wanted to add a Mad Dog bite to go with that kick. "It wasn't enough just to add in a bit more bite; I wanted to make this Mad Dog Sriracha Sauce truly powerful. I went straight in for the reaper pepper. This Sriracha is intense, while still retaining the goodness of more traditional Sriracha recipes."
The Mad Dog 357 Reaper Sriracha Sauce is a brand new edition to the Mad Dog family of extreme hot sauces, extracts, and oils. All of the Mad Dogs are hand measured, and recipes are perfected before release. "We spend a lot of time crafting our sauces," says Ashley. "Some recipes take years to get right. But it's worth it when you finally hit the mark. This Sriracha sauce is unique – and everything we wanted it to be." Not only does it boast the world's hottest chili peppers, but it's also got all the quality, flavor and fire that you would expect from a Mad Dog hot sauce.
David Ashley founded the Ashley Food Company in 1991. But Mad Dog was born five years earlier in David's Brighton, Massachusetts kitchen. Glowing reviews and multiple national hot sauce awards followed the development of their hand-crafted artisanal Mad Dog sauces. The acclaim came with collaborative inquiries from rock stars Joe Perry of Aerosmith and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead. Together, they produced products such as Joe Perry's Rock Your World Boneyard Brew Hot Sauce and a line of Wok Sauces with Bob Weir. The Ashley Food Company still uses only the finest all-natural ingredients, importing peppers and spices from all over the world as well as growing them locally for the hottest sauces you can sauce you can stand – and some that are much hotter than that.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Ashley Foods Releases a Potent Blend of Fire and Alcohol]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/ashley-foods-releases-a-potent-blend-of-fire-and-alcohol</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[ghost pepper, Mad Dog Ghost Pepper Tequila Extract, tequila]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 15:47:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/ashley-foods-releases-a-potent-blend-of-fire-and-alcohol-435263.jpg?v=1587649122</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Ashley Foods Releases a Potent Blend of Fire and Alcohol
“Mad Dog has married tequila and the result is a potion so powerful that it can’t be sold in a bottle bigger than 1 oz. Ghost Peppers are steeped in 80-proof salted tequila to create small, handcrafted batches of Mad Dog 357 Ghost Pepper Extract – Tequila Edition.”
Sudbury, MA (PRWEB) October 07, 2014
The fabulous fire-crafting geniuses over at the Ashley Food Company are doing it again. Only this time, they are mixing your two favorite things together into the most potent blend of fire and flavor you can imagine. That’s right; Mad Dog has married tequila. The result is a potion so powerful that it can’t be sold in a bottle bigger than 1 oz.According to David Ashley, the founder of Ashley Food Company, “Tequila is the perfect partner to the ghost pepper (bhut jolokia) as it doesn’t do anything to dull the fire, and it enhances the naturally intense fruity flavor these chilies can have.” And one drop of the Mad Dog 357 Ghost Pepper Extract – Tequila Edition is all you need to believe it. “Ghost peppers can boast over one million Scoville units of otherworldly heat. That’s so intense that we have to plaster cautions and warnings all over our packaging.”
The Mad Dog 357 Ghost Pepper Extract – Tequila Edition is the latest addition to the Mad Dog family of extreme hot sauces, extracts, and oils. Each product is unique, as is the newest mouth-melting release, but they all have something in common too. Each sauce is hand-measured and made. Ghost Peppers grown in India are steeped in 80-proof salted tequila to create small, handcrafted batches of Mad Dog 357 Ghost Pepper Extract – Tequila Edition. It’s serious business; so intense actually, that the recipe took over 2 years of testing to perfect.
The Mad Dog 357 Ghost Pepper Extract – Tequila Edition is packaged in a small bottle with an eyedropper because of the killer fire and flavor of this mixture. It’s the perfect addition to chilies, soups, stir-fries and, of course, cocktails. The capsaicin found in chili peppers can do some remarkable things, and a drop of this mixture can also alleviate your headaches. “As long as you respect just how blazing this extract is, you’re in for a flavor revolution,” claims Ashley.
David Ashley founded the Ashley Food Company in 1991. But Mad Dog was born five years earlier in David’s Brighton, Massachusetts kitchen. Glowing reviews and multiple national hot sauce awards followed the development of their hand-crafted artisanal Mad Dog sauces. The acclaim came with collaborative inquiries from rock stars Joe Perry of Aerosmith and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead. Together, they produced products such as Joe Perry’s Rock Your World Boneyard Brew Hot Sauce and a line of Wok Sauces with Bob Weir. The Ashley Food Company still uses only the finest all-natural ingredients, importing peppers and spices from all over the world as well as growing them locally for the hottest sauces you can stand – and some that are much hotter than that.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Massachusetts-based company proudly produces purest extract of peppers gathered from around the globe]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/massachusetts-based-company-proudly-produces-purest-extract-of-peppers-gathered-from-around-the-globe</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[Mad Dog 357 Plutonium No 9, No 90, Plutonium]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 22 Oct 2013 15:52:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/massachusetts-based-company-proudly-produces-purest-extract-of-peppers-gathered-from-around-the-globe-357644.jpg?v=1587647361</sr:image><description><![CDATA[The Ashley Food Company, which has been making hot food products in Massachusetts for 23 years, has just produced one of the hottest pepper and purest extract currently available in the world: Mad Dog 357 Plutonium No. 9. It is a highly refined extract of peppers from all over the globe.
“Our process produces one of the hottest chili pepper extracts on earth,” says David Ashley, founder, and president of Ashley Foods. “To give you a sense of how hot, take Scorpion peppers—currently the hottest in the world—which come in at 2,000,000 units on the Scoville scale—about 800 times hotter than Tabasco sauce. Our processing for one bottle of Plutonium No. 9 starts with 1,000 ounces of raw peppers—1,000 ounces!—and ends up with 1 ounce of power-packed extract that registers 9,000,000 on the Scoville scale. It’s pure heart!”
Because this is a painstaking and expensive process, Mad Dog 357 Plutonium No. 9 Pepper Extract is a premium product. It retails for $129.99 per bottle. “This is for the hot pepper aficionado,” says Ashley. “The one who has to have the hottest, the purest, the best—and there is nothing close to it on the market.”
Some may think that the retro “nuclear” packaging for Mad Dog 357 Plutonium No. 9 Pepper Extract is over the top, but this extract truly is dangerous, which is why the box contains a six-point disclaimer about how not to use it, with phrases such as: “can cause serious injury if directly consumed, ingested or applied to the body” and “I fully understand the potential danger if used or handled improperly” and “If I give this product as a gift, I will make the recipient fully aware of the potential danger if used or handled improperly.”
“Those warnings are no joke,” says Ashley. “If you get some of this stuff on your fingers and rub your eyes, you’re in for a world of pain.”
Ashley advises anyone who buys Mad Dog 357 Plutonium No. 9 Pepper Extract to never use more than one drop in any food or consume it directly. “One drop will give your dish enough zing for anyone,” he says. “And I mean anyone.”
The Ashley Food Company was founded by David Ashley in 1991—after Ashley had spent five years making Mad Dog hot sauce in his Brighton, Massachusetts kitchen. The company still makes its products in hand-measured batches that are cooked with loving care. Ashley Food uses only the finest all-natural ingredients, importing peppers and spices from all over the world as well as growing them locally.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mad Dog 357 Scorpion Pepper Hot Sauce]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/mad-dog-357-scorpion-pepper-hot-sauce</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[Mad Dog 357 Scorpion Hot Sauce, Scorpion, Scorpion Pepper]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 09 Jun 2013 15:53:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/mad-dog-357-scorpion-pepper-hot-sauce-576619.jpg?v=1587647942</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Mad Dog 357 Scorpion Pepper Hot Sauce
Think you like your hot sauce intense? Imagine being bitten by a scorpion—in your mouth! It’s one of the most intense pains a human being can experience. The Trinidad Moruga Scorpion pepper was crowned the world’s hottest in spring 2012, and this sauce is loaded with it. We dare you...
Ingredients: Vinegar, evaporated cane juice, Trinidad Scorpion peppers, Ghost Pepper, garlic, onion, Peri Peri pepper, spices, and xanthan gum.an gum.
At Ashley Food Company, we do one thing. We make great-tasting and award-winning hot sauces, extreme hot sauces, and pepper extracts. We make each sauce in hand-measured, small batches to ensure incredible flavor and quality. All of our products are made in the USA, using only the finest, all-natural ingredients.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Hot Time in the Kitchen!]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/a-hot-time-in-the-kitchen</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[featured, Fusion Oil Ghost Peppers, Infused Oils]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:55:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/a-hot-time-in-the-kitchen-797301.jpg?v=1587647791</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Sudbury, Massachusetts, April 8, 2013 – Ashley Foods has just released Mad Dog Ghost Pepper Fusion Oil, the first in its new line of infused oils with the world’s hottest and tastiest peppers. This oil is sparked with Bhut Jolokia peppers from India until recently rated by the Guinness Book of World Records as the hottest pepper in the world—and still the hottest being used widely in hot sauces. It is 400 times hotter than Tabasco sauce and off the charts on the Scoville Scale at over 1 million units! By comparison, the popular bird’s eye, or peri-peri, considered very hot by some, is a “mere” 100,000 on the Scoville Scale.
“Infused oils are everywhere these days,” says David Ashley, founder, and president of Ashley Foods, “but there’s nothing like this. We’ve set the bar – and the level of heat and flavor – high with our first oil, and we intend to keep it there.”
Mad Dog Ghost Pepper Fusion Oil begins with high-quality canola oil – the kind any good cook would use – and adds the zing of Bhut Jolokia pepper. The oil is prepared in hand-measured batches that enables Ashley to maintain tight control over flavor and heat. The result is infused oil unchained: spectacular flavor coupled with spectacular heat.
While some producers of hot food products boast only about heat, Ashley has always believed that high heat without an equal measure of great flavor cheats the customer. “More than once, I’ve had folks tell me that my Mad Dog sauces burn the hell out their mouth but also taste fantastic. With infused oils, this is even more important, since they’ll be used in sophisticated cooking, where the flavor is king.”
This is fusion oil on fire!!]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Ashley Food Company on Fox News]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/ashley-food-company-on-fox-news</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[Fox News, The world’s spiciest hot sauces]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 06 Feb 2013 21:43:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/ashley-food-company-on-fox-news-959396.jpg?v=1587651039</sr:image><description><![CDATA[ EXTREME FOODS The world’s spiciest hot sauces

Fox News February 06, 2013]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[“World’s Hottest Sauce” is Reborn]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/world-s-hottest-sauce-is-reborn</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[ashley food company, hot sauce guru, inferno mad dog, inferno reserve]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 27 Sep 2012 15:57:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/worlds-hottest-sauce-is-reborn-495678.jpg?v=1587651789</sr:image><description><![CDATA[“World’s Hottest Sauce” is Reborn
The Ashley Food Company has just re-released Mad Dog Inferno – the first sauce ever declared “World’s Hottest Sauce” in a national competition in 1998 – and its companion product Mad Dog Inferno Reserve, taking the recipes and their preparation processes back to the roots that made these sauces famous.
Sudbury, Massachusetts (PRWeb) September 16, 2012 – The Ashley Food Company, founded by hot sauce guru David Ashley, has just re-released the first hot sauce to be designated “World’s Hottest Sauce” in a competition with more than 100 contenders sponsored by Mo Hotta Mo Betta in 1998. Ashley has tweaked Mad Dog Inferno, and its companion sauce, Mad Dog Inferno Reserve, to make them more similar to the originals, producing sauces that perfectly balance pepper heat with fine flavor.
“We had drifted too far from our original approach over the years, and it was time to get back to our roots,” says David Ashley, founder, and president of Ashley Foods. “Superb flavor and texture along with intense heat are why this sauce beat a hundred competitors in California, and we’ve recaptured the magic of that combination in this re-release.”
Mad Dog Inferno is a Caribbean-style hot sauce that boasts a blend of the finest peppers and spices, which give it the richness of a fine steak or mole sauce to complement its intense heat. Mad Dog Inferno Reserve has all the richness of the original, plus some spicey tweaks of its own, and it has the added punch of Ghost Peppers, which tip the Scoville Scale at 1,000,000+ units (400 times hotter than Tobasco sauce).
“Chili heads have bought a lot of Mad Dog Inferno over the years, and we decided they deserved to experience this terrific sauce in a form closer to how it was originally conceived. We continually innovate for hot sauce lovers, and in this case innovating meant a return to the glory days of Mad Dog Inferno. Our new ‘old-fashioned rock poster’ labels signal the return to a classic approach.”
While some producers of hot food products boast only about heat, Ashley has always believed that high heat without an equal measure of great flavor cheats the customer. “More than once, I’ve had folks tell me that my Mad Dog sauces burn the hell out their mouth but also taste fantastic. We’ll always have the hottest sauces we can make, too, but with us, the flavor is king.”
The Ashley Food Company was founded by David Ashley in 1990—after Ashley had spent five years making Mad Dog hot sauce in his Brighton, Massachusetts kitchen. The company still makes it products in hand-measured batches that are cooked with loving care. Ashley Food uses only the finest all-natural ingredients, importing peppers and spices from all over the world as well as growing them locally. The company’s products have won enthusiastic reviews and multiple national hot sauce awards. Ashley has also had partnerships with Joe Perry of Aerosmith and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, producing products such as Joe Perry’s Rock Your World Boneyard Brew Hot Sauce and a line of Wok Sauces with Bob Weir.
Contact:
David Ashley
Ashley Food Company]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mad Dog All Natural Barbecue Sauces]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/mad-dog-all-natural-barbecue-sauces</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[Mad Dog BBQ Sauce]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 03 Aug 2011 16:01:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/mad-dog-all-natural-barbecue-sauces-698153.jpg?v=1587647371</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Cooking at home can get downright boring. However, the key to success is to include new ingredients in your dishes that you haven't tried before. Once and awhile when you're at the grocery store or reading a favorite website and see a review on seasoning or sauce why not purchase a couple? By putting yourself out there and exposing taste buds and family to new flavors you're constantly challenging and redefining your food palette. Mad Dog Barbecue Sauces might be just the key to gourmet food right from your home kitchen.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Deadly Snake Competition Captures Imagination of Mass Artists]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/deadly-snake-competition-captures-imagination-of-mass-artists</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[Boomslang Sauce, Chile Extract, Mass Artists, Massachusetts Artists, Massachusetts College of Arts and Design]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 17 Jun 2011 16:02:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/deadly-snake-competition-captures-imagination-of-mass-artists-621288.jpg?v=1587651275</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Twenty-year hot sauce veteran, David Ashley of Ashley Food Company, challenged Massachusetts College of Arts and Design students to create a cool label for his newest creation, Boomslang. He sent the design students a case of Liquid Fire to sample and inspire their illustrations. The winner, Indigo Moorhead, earned $250 for his first commercial work of art. The class learned how to apply their skills to the ‘real world’ new product development. They also got a few lessons in entrepreneurship free of charge.
Sudbury, MA (PRWeb), February 15, 2011 — African Peri Peri peppers, ghost peppers, boomslangs, and liquid fire were all foreign to the fourteen brave contestants from MassArt who accepted the challenge of illustrating the ferocious taste of a brand new hot sauce.  The illustrators quickly learned that boomslangs are highly poisonous snakes from Africa with needle-sharp fangs large enough to inspire awe in some and fear in others.
Africa is a hotbed of extremely deadly snakes.   The name, Boomslang, inspired Ashley because one small bite by a boomslang can be lethal. Ashley Food Company, Inc. is famous for its highly combustible hot sauces.  The combination of Ghost Peppers, Peri Peri, Jalapeno and Chile Extract gives Boomslang the effect of a snake bite.  Those who have tasted it describe the sensation as liquid fire.  You can come to your own conclusions about this bad boy.
First to Market Advantage
Ashley Food Company, Inc. got into the spicy foods business twenty years ago by being the first to introduce the African Peri-Peri Pepper to the hot sauce industry.  Being first to market is a definite advantage Ashley taught these illustrators.
Seasoned Inspiration
With 26 other sauces on the market, this Chief Marketing Officer and alchemist put the students to the test. He gave them 30 days to come up with a design that would knock his socks off.  “The art of creating a hot sauce is more than great taste,” Ashley said.  “A sense of humor, catchy names and labels that jump off the shelves are other key ingredients.”
Willing to Experiment
The serial hot sauce entrepreneur warned the students, “If you can’t sell your ideas, the term ‘starving artist’ can apply to you.”  Selling sauces that light your mouth on fire took practice Ashley admits. “You’ve got to be willing to experiment.”  Ashley created Ashley Food Wholesale Store to reach additional audiences and multiply sales.
The Value of Feedback
As part of the competition, Ashley gave students feedback on their original designs. Those who listened to his feedback had a better chance of creating a compelling image that captured the essence of this multidimensional hot sauce. Likewise, listening to customer feedback gives you a better chance of making the sale. The winner did just that and came out on top.
Ashley shares some final advice, “The business world is just as cut-throat as boomslangs. You need to thicken your skin and be prepared to outsell your competitors so you don’t get eaten alive.”
Dose of Reality
Professor Bob Maloney of The Massachusetts College of Art and Design] thanked Ashley for giving his students a dose of reality.  “This real-life assignment took things up a notch for the class. The students perked right up as soon as I handed out the assignment and delivered dynamite pieces across the board.  David’s feedback during critiques was invaluable for the students to hear. So was his story of being a successful entrepreneur who has been able to follow his dreams doing what he loves.  I hope that we will have the opportunity to work together in the future.”
To order Boomslang, visit Ashley Food Company, Inc. or call 1-800-61-SAUCE.
Contact:David AshleyAshley Food Company1-800-61-SAUCEwww.ashleyfoodcompany.com]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Ashley Foods Tops World’s Hottest Taco with 357 Silver in Las Vegas]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/ashley-foods-tops-world-s-hottest-taco-with-357-silver-in-las-vegas</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[Las Vegas, Terminator, World’s Hottest Taco]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 07 Mar 2011 05:00:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/ashley-foods-tops-worlds-hottest-taco-with-357-silver-in-las-vegas-854935.jpg?v=1587651478</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Ashley Foods Tops World’s Hottest Taco with 357 Silver in Las Vegas
The Riviera Hotel &amp; Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada chose Ashley Food Company of Massachusetts as the winner.  Ashley Foods will supply the world’s hottest hot sauce ever made to kick off the hotel’s first-ever Hall of Flames competition.  When Riviera hotel chefs tasted world famous Mad Dog 35 Silver, they found the missing ingredient for the World’s Hottest Taco –the Terminator.
Sudbury, MA (PRWeb), March 1, 2011 – Ashley Foods Tops World’s Hottest Taco with 357 Silver in Las Vegas. Riviera Hotel guests hungry for a one-of-a-kind visit to Las Vegas are surprised when they drop into Kady’s Coffee Shop and see the staff are all wearing firemen helmets.  Some extra brave guests are gambling that they can eat 100% of twelve-inch taco called The Terminator topped with a healthy dose of Mad Dog 357 Silver by Ashley Food Company.
Read the DisclaimerIf you crave extreme heat in the middle of winter, the Rivera is the pace to be. Caution is required, however.  The sauce on The Terminator is so hot, diners must sign a disclaimer acknowledging they are participating “at their own risk.” 357 Silver packs an out of this world 750,000 sizzling Scoville units making it the World's Hottest Hot Sauce ever made. Luckily Kady’s Coffee Shop overlooks the hotel pool if the Terminator’s extreme heat causes you to abandon ship.  Waitresses are standing by with your favorite beverage to extinguish the flames.
Eat all twelve inches of the world’s hottest taco and your Terminator will be on the house.  In addition to saving $7.99, the price of the taco, you’ll go down in history and earn your place in the Hall of Flames. Your experience will be immortalized in a photo hung up in Kady’s Coffee Shop next a few other brave souls who survived the experience.
Riviera’s Claim to FameYou’ll recognize the hotel in films such as:
• Ocean's Eleven (1960)• Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)• Vegas Vacation (1997)• Casino (1995)• Crazy Girls Undercover (2008)• 21 (2008)• The Hangover (2009)
Best Cure for a HangoverYou’ll forget you ever had a hangover once you sink your teeth into the Terminator Taco made with Ashley Food Company Mad Dog 357 Silver.About Ashley Food Company, Inc.David Ashley, President, and founder of Ashley Food Company, Inc., has been creating all-natural, mouth-watering, and award-winning products for two decades.   For more information about the complete line of Hot Sauces, visit Ashley Food Retail Store.Contact:David AshleyAshley Food Company978-579-8988maddog@ashleyfood.comwww.ashleyfoodco.com]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[True Taste of World’s Hottest Pepper]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/true-taste-of-world-s-hottest-pepper</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 10 Nov 2010 17:15:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/true-taste-of-worlds-hottest-pepper-545399.jpg?v=1587647697</sr:image><description><![CDATA[True Taste of World’s Hottest Pepper
Sudbury, Massachusetts (PRWEB) November 10, 2008 -- Ashley Food Co., creator of the world's hottest Mad Dog 357 Hot Sauce, has introduced a hot new edition: Mad Dog 357 Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce -- a blend that's bound to warm the hearts and obliterate the tongues of hot sauce collectors everywhere.
357 Mad Dog Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce Master Sauce Crafter and Creator, David Ashley, whose sauces and extracts have won the accolades of heat seekers around the world, says, "In the world of hot peppers, the Ghost Pepper is the king the of the hill. It was only natural to bring it to this super hotline of all-natural Mad Dog 357 Hot Sauces."
Called the Bhut Jolokia in its homeland of the Assam Region of Northeastern India, this pepper was first discovered by Paul Bosland, Professor at New Mexico State University, Regent. Guinness Book of World Records confirmed the finding that the "Ghost Pepper", as it is translated, delivers 1,001,304 Scoville Heat Units (SHU) making it nearly two times hotter than the Red Savina, the prior champion pepper of heat.
Of course, the Ghost Pepper isn't the only ingredient that makes the new Mad Dog 357 Ghost Pepper a hot new contender for heat lovers. The bottle, that can be seen and purchased at ashleyfood.com, also boasts a unique holographic label with ghosts that appear to jump off the bottle. Combined with the fact that the warning label reads loud and clear about the extreme caution, it's easy to see why this sauce will have people seeing their own ghost.
As David Ashley puts it, "The goal has always been to make hot sauces that are not just hot for hot sake, but instead, give heat lovers and sauce collectors sauces with complex flavor combined with true heat." It's one of the reasons why David Ashley says he also has his sauces measured using high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC); to not just state the heat, but to prove it as well.
For more information about Mad Dog 357 Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce and the complete line of hot sauces and barbeque sauces crafted by Ashley Food Company, visit www.ashleyfoods.com]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[BBQ Spells Success for MA Entrepreneur]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/bbq-spells-success-for-ma-entrepreneur</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[Mad Dog BBQ Sauces, Mad Dog Chipotle BBQ Sauce, Mad Dog Ghost Pepper Ultra Hot BBQ Sauce, Mad Dog Original BBQ Sauce]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 27 Oct 2010 16:09:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/bbq-spells-success-for-ma-entrepreneur-637948.jpg?v=1587648661</sr:image><description><![CDATA[ 
Twenty years in business and 26 sauces later, Ashley Food Company, Inc. continues to beat the odds. The secret to success for entrepreneur David “Mad Dog” Ashley lies in giving customers a reason to come back for more. The original Mad Dog all-natural bbq sauce kicked the company into high gear 20 years ago. Its popularity spawned the expansion into a whole family of Mad Dog sauces over the next 5, 10 and 15-year milestones. Now the #1 rated BBQ sauce by America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Magazine comes in three varieties, Original, Chipotle and Ultra Hot.
Dun &amp; Bradstreet reports, "Businesses with fewer than 20 employees have only a 9% chance of surviving 10 years." Ashley Food Company, Inc. is an exception to the rule.
Sudbury, MA (PRWEB), October 12, 2010 — In honor of the 20th anniversary of Ashley Food Company, Inc., founder David “Mad Dog” Ashley just introduced a family of three barbecue sauces featuring the ever-popular, Mad Dog Original all natural bbq sauce.  The original has the same, rich flavor that ranked it #1 by America’s test kitchen and Cook’s Magazine. The new Chipotle Mad Dog barbecue sauce has the same heat as the original, award-winning recipe and has a distinctive, new smoky flavor. The Ultra Hot Mad Dog barbecue sauce has been enhanced with added Ghost Peppers making it one of hottest BBQ sauces ever made.
What gives Chipotle Mad Dog bbq sauce its smooth, smoky flavor are large, red ripe, dried jalapeños that are called chipotle peppers. These peppers are the last ones to be harvested so they are brown in color. They are smoked slowly over an open fire for an unmistakable taste. There are many different grades of chipotle peppers.  http://www.ashleyfoodcompany.com [Ashley Food Company, Inc.] uses only high-grade chipotle, the finest money can buy.
When customers asked for an even hotter BBQ sauce, http://www.ashleyfoodcompany.com [Ashley Food Company, Inc.] delivered one of the hottest bbq sauces ever sold.  To intensify the heat of Ultra Hot Mad Dog bbq sauce, the company added Bhut Jolokia otherwise known as the ghost pepper. This pepper comes from India and is 400 times hotter than Tabasco sauce. Ghost peppers are certified by Guinness World records as the world’s hottest peppers.
All three varieties of Mad Dog bbq are dedicated to Ashley’s good friend, Bear, the chocolate lab who appears on the new label of this family of barbecue sauces.  To lock in freshness, Mad Dog bbq comes in a new, 12-ounce bottle with an unmistakable new logo.
Texas musician Lyle Lovett once compared barbecue sauce to a beautiful woman. He said, “If it’s too sweet, it’s bound to be hiding something.” (The Texas Monthly, June 2008) David Ashley explains why Mad Dog barbecue sauces have nothing to hide. “For 20 years, our hallmark has been to provide all-natural products. We use premium, fresh ingredients and no fillers, no additives and no preservatives. We guarantee this. ”
To order Mad Dog bbq sauces, visit http://www.ashleyfoodcompany.com [Ashley Food Company, Inc.], call 1-800-61-SAUCE or email maddog@ashleyfood.com.
For more information about the complete line of Mad Dog bbq and Hot Sauces created by Ashley Food Company, also visit http://www.ashleyfoodco.com [Ashley Food Retail Store] and http://www.ashleyfoodco.com [Ashley Food Wholesale Store].
About Ashley Food Company, Inc.As President and founder of http://www.ashleyfoodcompany.com [Ashley Food Company, Inc.]   in Sudbury, Massachusetts, David has been creating all-natural, mouth-watering, and award-winning products for two decades come January 2011. All Mad Dog creations are made in hand-measured batches and cooked to perfection. To this day, David ensures that every blend has a fresh-from-the-kettle-taste.
Ashley Food Company produces 26 sauces, from sweet with heat to lethal, including “The world’s hottest hot sauce” – 357 EXTREME hot sauce; Mad Dog BBQ sauces, Mad Cat, Teriyaki Hot sauce; industrial extracts, and has recently added Envy, 357 EXTREME Wing sauce and 357 EXTREME Mustard to the line-up. Find the complete line of Mad Dog Hot Sauces and barbeque sauces created by David Ashley at http://www.ashleyfoodcompany.com [Ashley Food Company, Inc.]
Contact:David “Mad Dog” AshleyAshley Food Company1-800-61-SAUCEmaddog@ashleyfood.comwww.ashleyfood.com]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sudbury firm gets fired up about its hot sauces]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/sudbury-firm-gets-fired-up-about-its-hot-sauces</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:12:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/sudbury-firm-gets-fired-up-about-its-hot-sauces-412289.jpg?v=1587650174</sr:image><description><![CDATA[By Bob Tremblay/Daily News staff
The MetroWest Daily NewsPosted Feb 01, 2010 @ 12:22 AM
SUDBURY — There’s hot sauce and then there’s the 357 Mad Dog Hot Sauce, Silver Collector's Edition.
Created by David "Mad Dog" Ashley, the sauce lays claim to being the world’s hottest, boasting a tongue-singeing 750,000 Scoville heat units. These units indicate the amount of capsaicin present in a sauce with capsaicin being the heat-producing component in chili peppers.
For comparison’s sake, a typical tabasco sauce has between 2,500 and 5,000 Scoville. During a hot wing eating contest at Jake’s Dixie Roadhouse in Waltham in October, Ashley unleashed a variety of his hot sauces on nine competitors. Contestants quickly dropped out as the sauces became hotter with each round. The final round showcased the Collector’s Edition and the eventual winner probably felt like she had lost as her face had "pain" etched on it in capital letters. Ashley takes all this in stride.
"I get paid to torture people for a living," says the hot sauce guru with a gleam in his eye. He started his company, Ashley Food Co. Inc., in his Brighton apartment in 1991. He now operates it out of his Sudbury home where he concocts his incendiary Mad Dog sauces and other products in his basement workshop.
The catalyst for the company, however, had nothing to do with hot sauces. "I’ve been eating natural foods since 1970 and I couldn’t find a decent natural barbecue sauce, one that had any flavor so I started tinkering in my kitchen around 1985 and made this sauce," Ashley recalls. "My friends loved it and they suggested I should market this. So I put it on the market and incorporated the company in 1991 on the same day the Gulf War started."
Ashley called his debut product Mad Dog Barbecue Sauce in honor of the "Mad Dog" nickname he received while working at Children’s Hospital in Boston. "They called a lot of people ‘Mad Dog,’ but I was one of the madder dogs," he says, adding that he has mellowed over the years.
"We originally tried three barbecue sauces - original hot, ultra-hot and mild Á but mild never did very well. I guess the name ‘Mad Dog’ and the word ‘mild’ don’t go together well."
While the barbecue sauce sold well and the company still sells it, the tomato-based product is expensive to produce due to the fluctuating prices of tomatoes and packaging costs. Producing hot sauces, on the other hand, where the main ingredient is a chili pepper, is less costly.
So, about three years after starting his company, Ashley introduced his first hot sauce - Liquid Fire, containing around 40,000 Scoville. "It did really well and the owner of Le Saucier in Quincy Market, Lisa Lamme, who was selling it at her store, kept urging me to make hotter and hotter sauces," says Ashley. "So I was fooling around with all kinds of recipes and started fooling around with pepper extract. Then I was half-asleep one night and I decided to use molasses as a base, providing something cool against the heat."
The result was Mad Dog Inferno, a hot sauce with almost 90,000 Scoville which Ashley brought in 1994 to the Fancy Food Show in New York where it was well-received. So well in fact that other companies started getting into the hot sauce business.
"Tim Eidson of Mo Hotta Mo Betta (a mail-order business specializing in hot and spicy food) was getting tired of everybody’s claims of having the world’s hottest sauce," says Ashley. "So he tested around 700 sauces using high-pressure liquid chromatography. It’s the most accurate way to test Scoville heat units.
"So Tim calls me up one day and says, ‘I have some pretty amazing news to tell you. Your sauce is hotter than anything we’ve sold worldwide. It’s so much hotter than anybody else’s on the market it’s ridiculous." At the time, the nearest competitor to Mad Dog Inferno was a sauce with a "paltry" 52,000 Scoville, according to Ashley.
Soon, the hot sauce war began heating up, so to speak. Unfortunately, Ashley got burned in the battle. The company which had manufactured his products was sold and the new owners wanted to help themselves to his accounts, including one that was earning Ashley about $250,000 a year, according to the chili pepper guru.
"They wanted to put me out of business," Ashley says. "I lost everything I had built up. I fought them off to stay in business, but I paid the price. Fortunately, I had a strong brand and I had killer lawyers. At that point in my business, they saved my derriere, no question about it."
When the matter was settled, Ashley ended up losing about $500,000. A pepper extract company he had partnered with also folded. "So I had to start over with much debt and with a much smaller business," says Ashley. "Then Joe Perry approached me about making a sauce for him." That would be Joe Perry, the Aerosmith guitarist who grew up in Hopedale. The result was Joe Perry’s Rock Your World Boneyard Brew Hot Sauce. Ashley also made a Mango-Peach Tango sauce for Perry.
"Then Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead contacted me," says Ashley. The result this time was a line of Weir wok sauces. "Michael Anthony (then the bassist of Van Halen) called me, but I had enough of rock stars by then," says Ashley. "He went with somebody from the West Coast. He’s a very nice guy and had been a fan of my barbecue sauce for a long time." Ashley then introduced his 357 lines of sauces. So named "because you’re looking down the barrel of a 357 gun when you’re eating it," he says. The company now makes 24 products, including such whimsically named hot sauces as Hemorrhoid Helper. It also sells pepper extract, a wing sauce, and a mustard sauce.
Since its start, the company has sold more than 2 million jars of sauces, according to Ashley. He credits the success of his company to "quality ingredients, great graphics on the packaging, good customer service, and stubbornness.
"I found early on if you don’t give the consumers what they want you’re not staying in business. I had some really heated arguments with magazine editors who were blatantly against super hot sauces, saying they were lame. But I’m giving the consumers what they want and this is what they want. I don’t try to judge what the products people want to buy are. I try to make them with quality, with safety and label them correctly so people know what they’re getting."
Ashley sells his products online on the company’s Web site www.ashleyfood.com., via 24 distributors nationwide and at specialty food stores such as Duck Soup in Sudbury. Prices range from $5 to $60.
"These sauces are great," says Duck Soup manager Pierre Weiss. "I sell a lot of them. They’re hot and have good flavor and the customers like them. The most popular are the Liquid Fire and new Ghost products."
And the attraction? "They taste good," says Weiss. "I have access to a lot of sauces, but Liquid Fire is the one I prefer because when I eat something I just like to put it over the food without thinking. Some of the hotter ones you have to be more careful or you pay the price and I don’t like to pay the price."
Ashley says the appeal of hot sauces is multifaceted. "First of all, they’re good for you," he says, noting that chilis have been linked to a variety of health benefits, including lowering blood pressure and reducing cholesterol.
"Yes, and it’s part macho," Ashley continues. "It’s the same attraction to exercise. It gets the endorphins going. The sauce sends a message from your tongue to your brain saying, ‘Fire! Help! Painkillers immediately!’ "
For those seeking solace, milk works best while alcohol only makes matters worse.
Revenue was down 15 percent in 2009, according to Ashley. "Last year I had to deal with a trademark issue with my biggest distributor in Germany," he says. "They were using the Mad Dog name without permission. Take that away and I was up 20 percent."
On the patriotic front, the company has donated hot sauces to American troops in Afghanistan. For the record, Ashley doesn’t just concoct the sauces. "I’ve been eating peppers since I was 5," he says. "In Chicago, our downstairs neighbors were Mexicans and breakfast was hot tortillas with honey and butter with habanero peppers."
After graduating from the High School of Art and Design in New York, Ashley built up a resume that included working as a groundskeeper, studying macrobiotics, serving as general manager of an inn owned by Alice Brock - the Alice of "Alice’s Restaurant" fame - working as a courier on the 1978 movie "The Brink’s Job" and operating as a service technician for Led Zeppelin during the band’s 1972 American tour. "That was insane," he says of his month-long Zeppelin experience. "But it’s nothing you can print in a family paper. They treated me very well, but they were crazy.... I’ve never liked regular, straight jobs."
While a company in Florida manufactures his sauces, Ashley still creates all the recipes and uses only ingredients he’s approved. While the hot sauce market features about six major players, not all of them deserve to be in the majors, according to Ashley.
"There are two grades of pepper extract: there’s crap and there’s the stuff you should use, and 95 percent of what’s on the market today is crap," he says. "I use better pepper extract. The result is a better aftertaste, better color. And I use only natural sugars - no preservatives, no chemicals, no additives, no coloring.
"Probably the best compliment I ever received was at a Fiery Foods Show. Two guys from a chili farm - they grew 60 varieties of chilis - sampled one of my 357 sauces and they were bowled over. One said, ‘How the hell did you get something that’s this hot yet you can still taste the chili pepper?’ I try to make everything have good flavor. It should taste good and look good."
For the future, Ashley is working on creating medicinal extracts with one geared toward treating arthritis and another toward treating carpal tunnel syndrome. "If you’re going to spice up food, why not spice it up and do something good for your body, too," he says.
He’s also working on creating butter-flavored oils to brush on food.
"I actually started the company to be in the natural food business," says Ashley, "but I found out that business was an incredible grind. It’s very difficult to sell into the supply chain and deal with mainstream supermarkets. I’ve been very fortunate to find this niche market - really spicy stuff and good-flavored hot sauces - and grow a decent business."
And torture people in the process.
The MetroWest Daily News | 33 New York Ave. Framingham, MA 01701
Copyright © 2006–2010 GateHouse Media, Inc. Some Rights Reserved.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Jakes Dixie Roadhouse hosts wing contest]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/jakes-dixie-roadhouse-hosts-wing-contest</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:18:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/jakes-dixie-roadhouse-hosts-wing-contest-600021.jpg?v=1595370448</sr:image><description><![CDATA[By Bob Tremblay/DAILY NEWS STAFF GHS
Posted Nov 04, 2009 @ 05:00 AM
WALTHAM —
Gretchen Vogel pounds her fists on the table and stamps her feet on the floor. Tears fall from her eyes and sweat drips on her brow.
Vogel is being tortured, but the pain is self-inflicted as the Somerville resident is competing in a hot wing eating contest at Jake's Dixie Roadhouse in Waltham.
Part of a special event called It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Dog, Freakin' Hot Party, the contest features the incendiary sauces of chili pepper guru "Mad Dog" David Ashley, president of Ashley Food Co. Inc., a Sudbury-based distributor of Mad Dog sauces and other products.
While the Moody Street restaurant has hosted events with fiery items on the menu before, the contest is a first. The first-prize winner receives $150. The second prize is $75. There's no entry fee.
For the event, waitresses wear devil horns.
At the start of the contest, Vogel takes her seat on a long table with eight other competitors. She's the only woman in this Thursday evening taste-bud bash. The opposition includes Mike Wickman of Waltham, Todd Casselman of Newton, Kyle Darrow of Marlborough, Mark Washburn of Sudbury, Rob DeRosier of Salem, Chris Blackwell of Indianapolis, Ind., Bob Munley of Scranton, Pa., and Dave Buxton of Waltham.
The rules are simple. Each contestant must finish two chicken wings coated with Ashley's Mad Dog sauces. The heat factor increases after each round. The last person sitting with tongue intact wins.
A box of plastic gloves gets placed on the table. Gloves offer protection from the hot sauce coming in contact with other body parts and burning them. Two bottles of antacid tablets are at the ready in case stomachs get inflamed.
Before the contest begins, all the contestants sign disclaimers so that no lawsuits can be filed in the event of permanent palate damage.
At a previous competition showcasing Mad Dog sauces, the contest only went five rounds, according to Jake's owner Don Yovicsin. "If this goes seven or eight rounds, God bless you," says Yovicsin to the contestants.
"I did this once in Billerica," says Washburn. "Afterwards, I had to sit in a snowbank to cool off." For the first round, Mad Dog's 357 Extreme Wing Sauce takes center stage. Why 357? "Because you're looking down the barrel of a gun when you're eating it," says Ashley. Still, the sauce isn't considered too torrid. "It has training wheels on," quips Yovicsin. DeRosier certainly isn't fazed. "I thought this was a hot wing contest," he says.
Round Two features Mad Dog 357 with a pepper mash. This one gets a reaction. "That's a deep burn," says Wickman. DeRosier encourages the crowd to get into the event. "Let's hear some 'yee-hah!' out there," he implores.
The round produces its first two casualties: Blackwell drops out and Munley follows. "That's just too hot," says Blackwell. Round three commences with Mad Dog 357 Pure Ghost. Why Ghost? "It's so hot that if you eat it, you'll see your own ghost," says Ashley.
Vogel takes a bite. "Oh my God!" she exclaims. "This one separates the real chili heads from the fakers," says Yovicsin.
The sauce takes its toll. Washburn, Buxton, Wickman, and Casselman all bow out.
For round four, Vogel, Darrow, and DeRosier get to try Mad Dog 357 Hot Sauce, Regular Edition. This one contains 357,000 Scoville Heat Units or SHUs. For the uninitiated, the Scoville scale measures the hotness of a chili pepper-based on the amount of heat-producing capsaicin it contains. The scale is named after American chemist Wilbur Scoville, who developed a test for rating the pungency of chili peppers.
For this round, Vogel dons the gloves, and the crowd starts getting enthusiastic. "Don't think about it," exhorts a Vogel supporter. "Right now, it's the fullness, not the heat," says DeRosier when asked about his discomfort level. He looks calm, cool, and collected.
Says Darrow, "I'm hanging in there. This one is bringing tears."
Vogel's face, meanwhile, is becoming a portrait in agony. She increases her beer consumption. Beer, unfortunately, provides little relief from capsaicin's embroiling power and can actually exacerbate the pain.
Round 5 brings out Mad Dog 357 with pepper extract. Seeing how much Vogel is suffering, DeRosier drops out. "She's going to hurt herself," he says. Appropriately enough, as the remaining two combatants square off, the song "No Way Out" by the Allman Brothers plays in the background.
To protect the innards of Vogel and Darrow, the rules are changed with the wing consumption reduced to one. "I feel like my mouth is going to fall off," says Vogel.
Darrow puts on a black headband to keep the sweat from his forehead. The two fire-eaters receive applause from the crowd as they finish their wings. Long pauses in between bites heighten the tension.
For round 6, the wings come coated with Mad Dog 357, Silver Collector's Edition. With 750,000 Scoville, it's the world's hottest sauce, Ashley claims. It's made with 6 million Scoville pepper extract. Pure capsaicin tips the scales at 16 million Scoville. The bottle's label states, "This sauce will blow you away." The sauce comes with its own risk disclaimer.
For mercy's sake, the rules again get altered. Now, the first person who finishes the wing triumphs. A grocery bag is brought in as a makeshift barf bag.
"My taste buds are already shot," says Darrow. Vogel has stopped speaking.
The eating then commences and after a considerable struggle, Vogel wins. And then loses what she just ate as she puts the grocery bag to use.
To provide relief, Jake's bartender Dana Hansen arrives with glasses of salt water and sugar. Vogel later sucks on a Creamsicle for more pain alleviation.
Darrow congratulates Vogel. "That last one, inhaling it was painful," says Darrow. "I can't even feel my throat."
Ashley then presents the prizes. Following a trip to the lady's room to recover, Vogel attributes her victory to the friends who supported her. They include Bill and Leah
Adams of Hull, Rachel Sepelak of Waltham and Deann Gorham of Canton. Bill Adams owns Hot Sauce World, a company that sells Ashley's sauces. Leah Adams grew up with Vogel in Hingham.
"It was fun," says Ashley, "and we didn't kill anybody."
Hot sauce fans can buy Ashley's products at specialty food stores such as Duck Soup in Sudbury, and online at the company's Web site, www.ashleyfood.com.
First place winner Gretchen Vogel of Somerville won $150, and second-place winner, Kyle Darrow of Marlborough, won $75 at the Mad Dog Hot Wing Contest at Jake's Dixie  Roadhouse in Waltham, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009.

 Second place winner, Kyle Darrow of Marlborough, won $75 at the Mad Dog Hot Wing Contest at Jake's Dixie Roadhouse in Waltham.
Mad Dog's David Ashley serves the wings to the first place winner, Gretchen Vogel of Somerville, who won $150, and second place winner Kyle Darrow of Marlborough, who won $75, at the Mad Dog Hot Wing Contest at Jake's Dixie Roadhouse in Waltham. Second place finisher Kyle Darrow of Marlborough takes a break from the heat. Gretchen Vogel of Somerville takes a breather, Gretchen Vogel of Somerville takes a breather before going on to win the hot wings contest.


Winner of the hot wings contest at Jake's Dixie Roadhouse in Waltham, Gretchen Vogel of Somerville, takes a bite.
By Bob Tremblay/DAILY NEWS STAFF GHS
Posted Nov 04, 2009 @ 05:00 AM
Copyright © 2009 GateHouse Media, Inc. Some Rights Reserved.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[When you're hot, you're hot]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/when-youre-hot-youre-hot</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[ashley food co., boston globe david ashley, boston globe mad dog hot sauce]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:21:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/when-youre-hot-youre-hot-250494.jpg?v=1590685717</sr:image><description><![CDATA[When you're hot, you're hot
Boston Globe August 10, 2008By Susan Chaityn Lebovits
Walk beyond the computers and fax machines in the Sudbury office of David Ashley and you'll find a rudimentary science lab. Turmeric, clove, beer buds, Serrano pepper powder, and extracts such as natural butter and mango fill the shelves of an old metal cabinet. Thirteen glass bottles in varying shades of orange are lined up across a tabletop, the result of gastronomic tinkering that may soon wind up on supermarket shelves across the nation.
Ashley, founder and chief alchemist for the Ashley Food Co., has been creating barbecue and hot sauces for nearly two decades. The 57-year-old has 21 products under his name, produces sauces for 12 other companies, and has sold 1.2 million bottles of one concoction or another.
"I started tinkering with sauces in 1985 in my Brighton apartment," said Ashley. "All of my friends told me that I should bottle and sell it." After six years of cooking gallons of sauces and pouring them into fruit-juice jars, he decided to take the plunge, incorporate, and find professional space.
Some of his sauces have taken weeks to perfect, he said, and others are created entirely in his head. "I once had a dream to make a molasses-based hot sauce, which I don't think anyone had ever done at the time," said Ashley. "It was both cool yet extremely hot, and had nice textures."
His first business break came from a woman working at Le Saucier, a gourmet shop in Boston's Faneuil Hall Marketplace, who urged him to make a hot sauce for the store. He named it "Mad Dog Inferno Hot Sauce".
While working on another sauce that he named Inferno, Ashley traversed Greater Boston searching for herbs and spices until he found the perfect clove powder at an Indian market in Central Square in Cambridge. He took his creation to the Fancy Food Show, which is put on by the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade, and signed a deal with a restaurant owner who had an enormous Bloody Mary bar that offered 200 varieties of hot sauces. The restaurant's owner, Chip Hearne, went on to start Peppers.com, and is one of Ashley's biggest customers, selling hot sauce via the Internet to 35 countries around the world.
In 1995, Ashley's Inferno was declared the hottest hot sauce on the market, based on the findings of a professional taster. Ashley's racked up 89,566 Scoville heat units, a system developed in 1912 for grading the pungency of chili peppers. Charlie Schandelmayer, owner of Sauce Crafters Inc. in Florida, who bottles Ashley's sauces, said the plant's atmosphere can get rather spicy.
"You're talking about producing sauces that in many cases are hotter than a can of defense spray," said Schandelmayer. "When you start to mix the sauce in the beginning of the day it kicks little micros into the air and becomes like pepper spray in the plant; the UPS guy will walk in at 10 a.m. to make a delivery and start coughing and choking."
Ashley said one of his favorite sauces is Green Amigo, which has fresh jalapeños, onions, garlic, and fresh cilantro and lime juice. His sauces range in price from $5 to $45; the top price will buy a 1.7-ounce bottle of 357 Mad Dog Pepper Extract.
One of Ashley's more memorable business moments involved the time he ordered key chains with a metal bullet to hang from the neck of his "357 Magnum" bottles, and learned, after delivery, that the bullet opened up to reveal a cocaine spoon. Stuck with many cases of nonrefundable key chains, Ashley hit upon the idea of marketing the sauce as the only one to come with its own tasting spoon.
"Lo and behold, it became a cult thing," said Ashley. "The Germans in Europe love this product." But he also received calls from his distributors saying that some customers had been arrested for selling drug paraphernalia. His 357 Mad Dog Silver Edition sauce is now one of the hottest in the world, boasting 750,000 Scoville units.
Ashley grew up on the south side of Chicago, the son of social activists who, Ashley said, were both jailed in the 1940s for defending civil rights. "At 7 days old I took part in my first peace march called 'Ban the Bomb' with the Committee for Non-Violent Action," said Ashley.
The family moved into a tiny apartment in New York City so Ashley could attend P.S. 6, known as one of the best public schools. "I could never read out loud, and didn't like to speak in public," said Ashley, who struggled with dyslexia. "I barely got out of high school and it was torture."
He attended the High School for Art and Design in Manhattan, and worked in an art supply store and did their window designs before moving to California. In line to be drafted for the Vietnam War, he was given conscientious objector status, and moved to Boston to fulfill his alternative-service requirement, working at Children's Hospital as a groundskeeper.
He also studied macrobiotics, was a caretaker for a home in the Berkshires, and bought and sold phased-out stereo equipment. While in the Berkshires, a friend suggested that he go see Alice Brock, owner of Alice's Restaurant in Stockbridge (made famous by the Arlo Guthrie song) to sell her a stereo. He did, and wound up living with her and managing the restaurant for a little under a year. When the couple split up he moved back to New York and took a number of odd jobs, including as a drum roadie for Kool and the Gang.
After numerous other jobs in the music business, Ashley went back to his job at Children's and began mixing his sauces on the side.
"David is the sultan of hot sauce," said Christopher McCarthy, a senior vice president for State Street Investors who also runs websites selling hot sauces. He credits Ashley with jump-starting his business and teaching him the ropes.
"There's no holding back with David. He'll show you everything you want to see."
For more on Ashley's sauces, visit ashleyfoods.com.To suggest a subject for the People column, e-mail Lebovits@globe.com.© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mad Dog 357 "The World’s Hottest Sauce"]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/mad-dog-357-the-world-s-hottest-sauce</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[hottest hot sauce, hottest sauce on market, World's Hottest Sauce]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 01 Aug 2007 16:22:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/mad-dog-357-the-worlds-hottest-sauce-436262.jpg?v=1587648629</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Mad Dog 357 "The World’s Hottest Sauce"
Sudbury, Massachusetts, August 1, 2007--The question of which hot sauce delivers the most heat has been a source of fiery debate among chili-heads for years. Number one with a bullet! Made with 6,000,000 Scoville Pepper Extract. That’s the 357 Mad Dog Silver Collectors Edition packing 750,000 sizzlin’ Scoville units, along with the heavyweight crown of the Worlds Hottest Hot Sauce ever made. Sporting an oh so apropos golden bullet on a key chain, fastened to the bottle of this killer concoction, making this hotter than hot sauce a very cool collectible. Do ya feel lucky punk?
357 Mad Dog Collector’s Edition is an all-natural, complex sauce that begins with, Ultra Pure 6,000,000 Scoville Pepper Extract, fiery hot Habanero Peppers, 160 Scoville Super Cayenne Peppers; with red wine vinegar, garlic, onion and evaporated cane juice. The result is a sauce that packs all the heat you can handle wrapped around a wider range of flavors. Quite simply, it’s more intriguing than anything you’d ever expect in a sauce that is truly "The World's Hottest Sauce."
With a legal warning on the bottle, about five-seconds after you taste the recommended dose of one scant drop or less, prepare your mouth and mind for five to 30 minutes of agony that all true chili-heads fully understand and appreciate. So what are you waiting for? Join the chili-brigade and indulge in the intense and long-lasting savory eruption that comes from just a drop of 357 Mad Dog Silver Collector’s Edition. Because it’s so powerful, the average chili freak can get approximately 1,000,000 mind-blowing, fiery doses in each 5-oz. bottle.
Today pepper heat can be measured both organoleptically (that is by taste) and instrumentally. In the latter, an instrumental test uses high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) to determine the number of capsaicinoids in parts per million, with results reported as "percent capsaicinoid by HPLC. 357 Mad Dog Silver Collector’s Edition is a super sizzling 750,000 HPLC, which will blow away the nearest competitor. 357 Mad Dog Silver Collector’s Edition Hot Sauce packs an incendiary burn that just may go beyond its name]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[David Ashley Brings the Heat]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/david-ashley-brings-the-heat</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[hot to make hot sauce, make homemade hot sauce, make hot sauce, recipe for homemade hot sauce]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 27 Jun 2007 16:24:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/david-ashley-brings-the-heat-693271.jpg?v=1590685725</sr:image><description><![CDATA[
David Ashley Brings the Heat
Christian Science Monitor - June 27, 2007By Jennifer Wolcott | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Never before have I tasted hot sauce off a toothpick. But when my mouth caught fire 10 seconds after tasting "Inferno," one of the hottest of hot sauces in the world, I understood why David Ashley, maker of Mad Dog hot sauces, had urged me to sample his sauce with a toothpick rather than the plastic mini spoon I'd used to taste his other, milder sauces. He also insisted – in a stern but kind tone – that I place the toothpick in the center of my tongue, by all means avoiding my lips and the tip of my tongue. He also placed a tall glass of milk in front of me, explaining that a swig of milk is the best way to cool off the burn.
He's done this before, I realized. I wasn't his first victim. There must have been some hapless tasters in the past who had pursed the toothpick between their lips and regretted it. Ah, yes, I noted: Each of his colorful, playfully self-illustrated sauce labels features a warning. Some are light-hearted ("Not for pussycats"), and others downright dire: "Warning: This sauce is very hot – use it at your own risk."
"What other business allows you to torture people for a living?" he jokes.
"Inferno" is not even the hottest of Mr. Ashley's line of 15 bottled sauces, which he launched in his kitchen in 1985 at the urging of friends who couldn't get enough of his homemade barbecue sauce. He also produces a sauce dubbed "357" for its 357,000 Scoville heat units – a scientific grading system for the heat intensity of chili peppers. That's a big leap from Inferno's 89,000 "Scovilles," as industry insiders call them.
Though he's turned on the heat since his early days at the stove, Ashley's favorite is his more tame "Green Amigo," a blend of habanero peppers, onions, garlic, cilantro, vinegar, and lime juice, which one can eat by the spoonful. "It's an everyday sauce that's great with anything, especially eggs," he says.
But as long as the market demands tongue-scorching sauces like 357, this self-described chief alchemist and founder of Ashley Food Co. plans to deliver. "It doesn't have to be hot to be great," he says. "But because lots of people want it hotter and hotter, I respond to that. I have to go where the market goes."
Already this year his company has sold $100,000 worth of Mad Dog 357: The demand for heat shows no signs of cooling.
Ashley says it's partly just a "macho thing," where people want to show how well they can handle spicy blends of habanero, jalapeño, or Scotch bonnet peppers. The popularity may also have something to do with consumers' heightened tolerance for highly spiced foods as a result of increased world travel and exposure to ethnic cuisines at home, where the restaurant scene has become more diverse than ever.
Whatever is driving demand, responding to the market has served Ashley well over the years. When the hot-sauce trend was really sizzling in the 1990s, he was selling to about 2,200 stores worldwide. He now sells through 200 large distributors, not stores, but overall it amounts to a slight decrease in sales. Ashley attributes that to "a funky economy" and also his shifting priorities. In addition to running his own business out of his basement in a Boston suburb, he has a wife (who can't stand hot sauce) and a 9-year-old son (an avid fan). He's spending more time at the baseball field these days – but has no plans to shelve the sauce.
His eyes grow big when he talks about ideas for the future, such as a mellower line that might include dipping, glazing, and marinating sauces.
Ashley doesn't have a culinary school degree. His entree into the food world was less conventional. In 1976, his then-girlfriend Alice Brock asked him to run Alice's Restaurant (of Arlo Guthrie song fame) in Stockbridge, Mass. It was during his short but grueling stint there, says Ashley, that he learned the value of cooking with fresh, natural, high-quality ingredients. Ashley says he's scoured the globe for the best vinegar, tamari, herbs, and spices.
Cook's Illustrated Magazine crowned his barbecue sauce the "Original Best in the USA"; Southern Living called the same sauce the "Best Bottled BBQ Sauce." In 2002, his Mad Cat Hot Sauce garnered First Place, Habanero Hot Sauce, at the Scovie Awards hosted by Fiery Foods &amp; Barbecue Magazine. He has even collaborated with rock stars, most recently advising Aerosmith's Joe Perry when he launched his own hot sauce, and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead with his line of wok sauces.
But he says he no longer feels the need to chase after awards, hobnob with rock stars, or travel the globe. His favorite source of herbs and spices is a tiny Indian market a few miles away. He is a connoisseur of local restaurants, and he most enjoys staying home, grilling with his family on his back deck. Of course, a bottle of Green Amigo is never far away, nor is a stash of his original barbecue sauce, reminding him of his 17-year journey as an entrepreneur.
"Everyone thought my barbecue sauce was great," he says. "Of course, you start thinking that 'Hey, maybe I'll make a quick million bucks doing this.' "
But it hasn't been that easy. For most hot sauce producers, he explains, "the market went sky high, but then you realize you can't make a living selling sauce for $6 per bottle at the mall."
More than the financial ups and downs, he adds, is the strain on family life that can come with running one's own business.
"It's been a lot of fun, going to the trade shows and all," he says. "But if I had it to do over again, knowing what I know today, I'd think really hard about it."
Clearly the Mad Dog in David Ashley has mellowed, and the time is ripe for this alchemist to head back into his lab and mix up those more subdued sauces.
Before long, Teriyaki for Pussycats just might share a shelf with Mad Dog 357.
Homemade hot sauce
Commercial hot-sauce maker David Ashley is understandably reluctant to say how he makes the sauces he sells. But he's generous about listing ingredients and urges home chefs to experiment: Use more cilantro, less, or none; add unsulfured molasses; dry or prepared mustard; try a blend of different chilies.
5 chili peppers of your choice (see story on 'heat' below): jalapeño, habanero, Scotch bonnet, or some other, deseeded (wear rubber gloves) and chopped
3 to 5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup cilantro, or more to taste (optional)
1/2 cup good-quality, red wine vinegar
Juice of one lemon
1/4 teaspoon salt
Combine ingredients in a food processor and process until liquefied. Transfer mixture to the saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes. Let cool and then put the sauce into sterilized glass containers.
Yield: about 2 cups.
The sauce will keep for several weeks in the refrigerator.
- from David Ashley
How hot is 'hot'?
The Scoville heat unit (SHU) was developed by American chemist Wilbur Scoville in 1912 as a way to compare the 'heat' or piquancy of chili peppers. The perception of heat is a measure of how much capsaicin is present. The original test found how many times a unit of pepper extract had to be diluted in sugar water before its piquancy was undetectable by a panel of tasters.
On the Scoville scale, a sweet or bell pepper, which has no capsaicin, rates a 0. A habanero pepper, though, has a SHU of 200,000 or more, meaning that it has to be diluted by a factor of 200,000 before its heat is no longer detectable.
Some sample ratings (in SHUs):
2,000,000-5,300,000: Standard US-grade pepper spray
350,000-577,000: Red Savina habanero
100,000-350,000: Scotch bonnet
50,000-100,000: Thai pepper, malagueta pepper, chiltepin pepper
30,000-50,000: Cayenne pepper, ají pepper, tabasco pepper
10,000-23,000: Serrano pepper
2,500-8,000: Jalapeño pepper
2,500-5,000: Tabasco sauce
1,000-1,500: Poblano pepper
100-500: PimentoSource: Wikipedia; The Pepper Encyclopediawww.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2007 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[EXTREME 357 Mustard Wins the Gold Medal]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/extreme-357-mustard-wins-the-gold-medal</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[hot mustard sauce, Mad Dog 357 Mustard, Napa Valley Mustard Festival World-Wide Mustard Competition]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 19 Mar 2007 16:26:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/extreme-357-mustard-wins-the-gold-medal-693121.jpg?v=1587651625</sr:image><description><![CDATA[EXTREME 357 Mustard Wins the Gold Medal
Sudbury, MA March 19, 2007 -- Ashley Food Company’s 357 Mad Dog Extreme Mustard won the gold medal for Best Mustard Base Hot Sauce at the Napa Valley Mustard Festival, competing against over 350 entries.
Mustard users and mustard non-users become ”mustard maniacs” with this outstanding condiment that features real Colman’s English Mustard, Habanero peppers, fresh ground horseradish, and the hugely popular turmeric.  EXTREME MAD DOG 357 MUSTARD sets off fireworks in hotdogs, burgers, grill, and meats; dips, dressings, marinades, and sides. This mustard’s versatility goes everywhere, from brown bag lunches to Asian specialties and fusion sauces.  Whether you bathe foods in it, or “a little dab’ll do ya’”, this indulgence will quickly become a staple in your refrigerator.
Award-winning Ashley Foods’ sauces are made with nothing but top-line, all-natural ingredients from around the world: aged Japanese Tamari sauce, African Chiles, unsulphered molasses and extracts, and FRESH Habaneros, Jalapenos, cilantro, lime, onion, garlic and more… all sauces are free of nasty preservatives, crafted in small batches with insane devotion and attention to detail.  Other sauces available: 357 EXTREME MAD DOG “World’s hottest hot sauce”, MAD DOG BBQs, MAD CAT HABANERO, SPICY TERIYAKI, GREEN AMIGO, and IDIOT BOYZ, among others. The recently landed 357 EXTREME WING SAUCE is flying circles of flame around all other wing sauces, offering skull-busting heat with divine flavor.
357 EXTREME MAD DOG MUSTARD will soon blast into stores offering fine condiments but is now available for internet ordering www.ashleyfood.com.  Suggested retail – 5.99 oz. bottle.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Dave Ashley, the devoted Master Sauceman since 1991.
Tel: 978-579-8988]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Red Hot Chili Peppers Sauces]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/red-hot-chili-peppers-sauces</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[boston phoenix bbq sauce review, boston phoenix food review, crave hot sauce, Hot Sauce, Mad Dog 357]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 27 Jan 2007 21:53:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/red-hot-chili-peppers-sauces-858968.jpg?v=1587650790</sr:image><description><![CDATA[The Boston Phoenix - 
WHAT’S A SCOVILLE, you ask? By the time flames are dancing off your tongue and you’re on your knees waiting for a merciful death, you’ll know: it’s a measure of the heat in a pepper. And many people take sick pleasure in pushing their Scoville capacity to unbearable limits. They crave a hot-sauce fix the way kids crave candy — and just like kids, heat freaks can’t pass up a dare. If tired old Tabasco isn’t lighting your fire, it’s time to try the local beauties. Some sting right away, where others are sneaky and slow-building; some come in bottles with snazzy labels, and others come fresh from restaurant kitchens. But they have one thing in common: they don’t tickle.
At the East Coast Grill’s famous "Hell Nights," freaks burn for the deadly delicious offerings. Take home a bottle of chef/owner Chris Schlesinger’s delectable and appallingly hot concoction, Inner Beauty "Real Hot" Sauce ($3.95), made with Scotch bonnet peppers, mustard, pineapple juice, papaya purée, cider vinegar, orange juice, molasses, honey, and brown sugar.
El Pelón named its Señor John Delisle Hot Sauce ($6 a pint) after the brave (or just insane) Phoenix employee who recently won its chili-pepper-eating contest. The hot-as-hell Scotch-bonnet-pepper sauce features a bold citrusy flavor drawn from limes. Or try the slow-burning, subtler Arbol Chili Hot Sauce ($6 a pint), with nuances of roasted sesame and pumpkin seed. And Redbones Barbecue ladles out the rich, dark good stuff ($4 a pint) to those who aren’t sweating enough from their heaping plates of the pulled pig.
Sauce lovers should also keep handy a jar of B.B. Wolf’s Blow Your House Down Hot Sauce ($4.95). B.B.’s adds a dash of the spicy Southwestern potion to its special Bloody Marys, in case a morning hangover isn’t painful enough. The eatery sells a variety of other hot sauces whose hilarious labels promise incineration: the Endorphin Rush ($4.95), with a hint of soy sauce and molasses, boasts an explosion of flavor, then a wave of heat; the Butt Twister ($5.95) "butt-Blazin’ fire sauce" makes a perfect gag gift; and the New England Patriots’ Hot Sauce ($7.95) doesn’t do much, but looks pretty.
Speaking of cocky labels, Ashley Foods’ 357 Mad Dog Hot Sauce ($10) comes with a five-step warning, asking the buyer to affirm that "I am not inebriated or otherwise not of a sound mind, and I am fully able to make a sound decision about the purchase of this product." Sound mind? If you’re a glutton for hot-sauce punishment, you passed that point long, long ago.
• Ashley Food Company, P.O. Box 506, Dedham, (800) 61-SAUCE; http://www.ashleyfood.com/
© 2002 Phoenix Media Communications Group]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Packin' Ballistic heat and Extreme flavor!]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/packin-ballistic-heat-and-extreme-flavor</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[award winning mustard sauce, best mustard, hot mustard marinade, Mad Dog 357 Mustard, specialty mustard sauce, worlds hottest mustard]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 01 Jan 2006 17:28:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/packin-ballistic-heat-and-extreme-flavor-327914.jpg?v=1587647506</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Packin' Ballistic heat and Extreme flavor!
Sudbury, MA. February 2006.  Are you looking for freakin’ hot and sublimely delicious mustard that will rescue those mystery meat sandwiches, sorry-sack hot dogs, blasé grilled food and anemic dressings? Look no further! 357 EXTREME MAD DOG MUSTARD has just arrived fresh, scorching and tasty from the seismic vats of Ashley Food Company, maker of the infamous 357 MAD DOG Hot Sauce, the “World’s Hottest Hot Sauce”.  The demand for incendiary mustard is answered with 357 EXTREME MAD DOG MUSTARD, which may well be “the “World’s Hottest Mustard”.
Mustard users and mustard non-users become MUSTARD MANIACS with this outstanding condiment that features real Colman’s English Mustard, Habanero peppers, fresh ground horseradish, and the hugely popular turmeric. Monster heat marries absolutely voluptuous flavor and results in 360 degrees of complex, full-bodied ecstasy. Walloping Scoville of heat wash over the taste buds and leave a lingering afterglow of heat and flavor. The color is brilliant ochre, the texture stout, and the aroma alone will blow the cobwebs from your head and blast you into an altered state - a galaxy away from regular yellow mustards.
357 EXTREME MAD DOG MUSTARD sets off fireworks in hot dogs, burgers, grill, and meats; dips, dressings, marinades, and sides such as potato and pasta go way, way uptown. Hot dogs become fit for a king, bologna tastes like a million bucks and pastrami becomes a Broadway star.  This mustard’s versatility goes everywhere, from brown bag lunches to Asian specialties and fusion sauces.  Whether you bathe foods in it, or “a little dab’ll do ya’”, this indulgence will quickly become a staple in your refrigerator.  357 EXTREME MAD DOG MUSTARD is truly the Midas touch.
Award-winning Ashley Foods’ sauces are made with nothing but top-line, all-natural ingredients from around the world: aged Japanese Tamari sauce, African Chiles, unsulphered molasses and extracts, and FRESH Habanero chiles, Jalapeno chiles, cilantro, lime, onion, garlic and more… all sauces are free of nasty preservatives, crafted in small, gourmet batches with insane devotion and attention to detail.  Other sauces available: 357 EXTREME MAD DOG “World’s hottest hot sauce”, MAD DOG BBQs, MAD CAT HABANERO, SPICY TERIYAKI, GREEN AMIGO, and IDIOT BOYZ, among others. The recently landed, 357 EXTREME WING SAUCE is flying circles of flames around all other wing sauces, offering skull-busting heat with divine flavor.
357 EXTREME MAD DOG MUSTARD will soon blast into stores offering fine condiments and is now available for internet ordering www.ashleyfood.com.  Suggested retail – $5.99 oz. bottle.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Dave Ashley, the devoted Master Sauceman since 1991.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[World’s hottest wing sauce!]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/world-s-hottest-wing-sauce</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[357 Mad Dog Wing Sauce, wing sauce marinade, world's hottest hot sauce]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 01 Nov 2005 17:30:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/worlds-hottest-wing-sauce-758268.jpg?v=1587648745</sr:image><description><![CDATA[World’s hottest wing sauce!
Sudbury, MA. November 2005.  Ashley Foods, maker of 357 MAD DOG hot sauce, “World’s hottest hot sauce” has responded to demands for a stoked-up Wing sauce with 357 EXTREME WING SAUCE, “World’s hottest wing sauce”. This wing sauce possesses heat from Hell for the wildest heat-freak but can be tempered for more civilized folk by mixing it with any favorite sauce or marinade. Chile peppers, smooth butter flavor, and mellow beer buds, the ingredients are fresh, natural and preservative-free, a rich vermillion color, silky smooth in texture.
357 EXTREME WING SAUCE is hand-crafted in small batches  -  Ashley Foods is mad about no-compromise quality and mouth-watering taste. The explosive heat sneaks up and partners with the huge, REAL taste - not that vinegary bite in common wing sauces. More than a fiery sauce to drench chicken wings, 357 EXTREME WING SAUCE can also be added (per taste) to meats, appys, and dips for an outrageous twist or a little kick.  Perfect for Holiday recipes and entertaining. Orders for this sauce piled up even as the sauce was still in careful development.  A prominent Boston restauranteur describes it as “Wing-suckin’ delicious”.
Award-winning Ashley Foods also makes the popular MAD DOG BBQ sauces, MAD CAT Habanero, SPICY TERIYAKI, GREEN AMIGO, IDIOT BOYZ and others.  357 EXTREME WING SAUCE will soon be landing in fine stores offering premium sauces, and available for internet ordering  www.ashleyfood.com.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rocker Joe Perry Releases New Hit]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/rocker-joe-perry-releases-new-hit</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[exotic mango peach tango sauce, Joe Perry, mango peach sauce, Mango Peach Tango, rocker joe perry]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 20 Oct 2004 16:31:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/rocker-joe-perry-releases-new-hit-637412.jpg?v=1587647584</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Rocker Joe Perry Releases New Hit
Sudbury, MA (PRWEB) October 20, 2004 -- ASHLEY FOOD COMPANY is premiering the latest brainchild of JOE PERRY, lead guitarist for Aerosmith - exotic MANGO-PEACH TANGO hot sauce, joining his hit 'Rock Your World BONEYARD BREW hot sauce. Available online and in quality food venues, along with 14 award-winning sauces in the Ashley Foods line.
Joe is a very hot rocker and a very creative cook. He personally develops, oversees production, and promotes his sauces -- now everyone can 'Cook like Joe Perry. Look for Joe Perry's cooking up hot rock licks onstage and in food shows and media events. Boneyard Brew is a kickin combo of BBQ and hot sauce with a backbone of Habanero, Chipotle and bell peppers. It exhibited in many food shows this year, with Joe appearing on EMERIL LIVE, FOOD FINDS and CBS MORNING SHOW. The response was tremendous. We expect nothing less with MANGO-PEACH TANGO, with its unique formula and taste to match its striking label.
MANGO-PEACH TANGO is a succulent sauce, bursting with fresh fruit and heat for any recipe using an innovative hot sauce. Its main ingredients are peach, mango, bell pepper, lime juice, onion, garlic, and Habanero pepper -- all fresh. With premium ingredients, no preservatives and lusty flavor, it enhances low-carb diets.
There is a huge Caribbean emphasis in pop culture, influencing cuisine with a fusion approach. MANGO-PEACH TANGO sauce leads the crowd with this number -- you will want to dance on the table! How to achieve this mouth-watering experience.
MANGO-PEACH TANGO and BONEYARD BREW are available with or without Joes collector guitar pick, and also in a personally autographed collectible bottles. And in time for holiday gifts come cool Boneyard Brew tee-shirts, 3 styles, all attractive and well-made.
Along with Aerosmith Joe Perrys MANGO-PEACH TANGO and BONEYARD BREW hot sauces, Ashley Foods offers award-winning BBQ sauces, MAD CAT Habanero sauce, and the MAD DOG line. Included are Green Amigo, Liquid Fire, Inferno, Spicy Teriyaki, Hemorrhoid Helper, 357 with a novelty brass bullet attached, among more EXTREME sauces. These have been featured in many fiery foods articles. Owner Dave Ashley has been the inventive sauce master for over 13 years, located in Sudbury, MA.
 ]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Joe Perry: Keeping It Hot]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/joe-perry-keeping-it-hot</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[joe perry aerosmith, joe perry and david ashley partner]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 16 May 2004 16:33:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/joe-perry-keeping-it-hot-378258.jpg?v=1590685711</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Joe Perry: Keeping It Hot
Considering the number of blues-based riffs that drive so many Aerosmith songs--and even the country elements that creep in every now and then--it’s not all that surprising that the band members’ affection for Southern culture extends deeply into the region’s often spicy cuisine.
Guitarist Joe Perry says that for years now, the band has taken boxes of hot sauce on the road, noting that it even maintains a short-list of key barbecue restaurants across the U.S.
Yet Perry has taken that love to a whole new--and pretty unique--level for one of the world’s biggest rock stars.  A hot sauce fan himself for some 20 years, ever since he began vacationing regularly in Jamaica, Perry has launched his own brand of the fiery condiment: Joe Perry’s Rock Your World Boneyard Brew.
The sauce--which Perry notes is more akin to the Caribbean, fruit-based sauces than the Louisiana, tomato-based brands--is something the guitarist has wanted to create for some time now.
It’s an idea born out of his habit of mixing different sauces while on the road.  “There’s always, like, a stack of hot sauce in my dressing room,” he says.  “And I found myself blending different ones together, to find what I really liked.  There was always something missing.  So finally, I had this name, ‘Rock Your World,’ trademarked [about four years ago].”
During the past few years, Perry has been working with friend and Boston-area food industry exec David Ashley and his local Ashley Food Co. to find the right formula.  They have partnered in a company created and funded by Perry.
On a scale of one to 10, Perry says the heat of his sauce is probably a four or a five.  “The heat is not overpowering.  I mean, if you’ve never had a hot sauce before, you’d probably find it hot.  But if you at all like spicy food--even on occasion--I think you can eat it and like it.”
Explaining what makes his sauce distinct, he notes,  “Aside from the fact that it has very high-quality ingredients, everything is as close to fresh as you can get, with no preservatives.  But it also has the chipotle peppers in it, and there’s a touch of garlic; that’s what I think sets it off.”
At joeperryrockyourworld.com, fans can purchase bottles of the sauce and even put in orders for bottles bearing a personalized autograph from the guitarist.
Perry, who occasionally also barbecues for friends--especially when Aerosmith is working in his basement studio, where it recorded 2001’s Just Push Play--says he plans to launch a second sauce and a pepper jelly in the coming years.
With a laugh, he says that creating his Boneyard Brew has given him a chance to dispel the idea that since he kicked drugs and alcohol, this former half of the Toxic Twins eats nothing but health food.“I mean, I like healthy food, but I usually have a steak three or four times a week.  And one of my favorite things to put the sauce on is a hamburger.”   --Wes Orshoski]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Ashley Food Company Teams Up With Bob Weir]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/ashley-food-company-teams-up-with-bob-weir</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[Bob Weir, bob weir cooks, bob weir grateful dead, feature]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 13 Sep 2003 16:34:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/ashley-food-company-teams-up-with-bob-weir-446594.jpg?v=1587649656</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Ashley Food Company Teams Up With Bob Weir
Dedham, Massachusetts (PRWEB) August 13, 2003 - Bob Weir, a founding member of the renowned band The Grateful Dead, has joined forces with the Ashley Food Company of Dedham, Ma., to develop, manufacture, distribute and market Weir's line of exotic cooking sauces. On breaks from touring Weir created the and Otherworld cooking sauces. Both are packed in custom black glass bottles with psychedelic labeling and the legendary Grateful Dead's distinctive lightning bolts molded in the sides. They're collectible in their own right and are finding many interesting careers in their "empty" afterlife.
Ashley already rocked the world of hot sauce lovers last year when he partnered with Joe Perry, legendary lead guitarist of Aerosmith, to create Joes' newest #1 hit: Joe Perry's Rock Your World  Boneyard Brew". With Weir, you have the Snake Oil Sauces, which come in Hot and Stir Fry, with a cosmic kick of heat from jalapeno peppers, a slice of California orange, with maple sugar and molasses providing a breeze of sweetness.
The Otherworld Sauces, Hot and Wok, provide subtle heat, while full of flavors from the 1,000 islands stretching from Fiji to Formosa, including ginger, tamarind, citrus fruits, sesame, and a dab of chili driven heat. All ingredients were selected by Bob, are all-natural, with mystical flavors as memorable as their monikers.
Founded in 1991, Ashley Food Company has quickly earned an international reputation, with his line of Mad Dog BBQ and Hot Sauces, for high-quality products made with only premium, all-natural ingredients, hand measured and cooked to perfection. It's this attention to detail, and quality assurance that caught the attention of Joe Perry and Bob Weir, both hot sauce aficionados, who wanted to work with Ashley and create a jam session for the taste buds.
You can also hear both Weir and Perry jamming this summer, with both Aerosmith, and the newly rejuvenated Dead touring the country. Aerosmith is headlining with Kiss, and The Dead are teaming with Steve Winwood and Joan Osborne. Both Tours will be making stops in Boston.
The products are available at www.ashleyfood.com. with all net profits from Weir's sauces going to the Further Foundation: The Further Foundation, funds progressive groups working on environmental and social issues in California's Bay Area and around the world.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rock n Roll Seeps into Hot Sauce]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/rock-n-roll-seeps-into-hot-sauce</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[chris rattey boston globe, hot sauce heat index]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 15 Apr 2003 16:38:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/rock-n-roll-seeps-into-hot-sauce-752443.jpg?v=1587651002</sr:image><description><![CDATA[A&amp;E / NEWS BOSTON.COM -
Spotlights taste — not heat
By Chris Rattey, Boston.com  |  April 15, 2003
HEAT INDEX
1 pepper: Mild
2 peppers: A comfortable zing
3 peppers: Hot
4 peppers: Very hot
5 peppers: Ridiculous
What do you get when you combine Aerosmith's Joe Perry with a hot sauce called the "Boneyard Brew"? You get an overwhelming urge to try some. I assembled a taste-test crew to see how the famed guitarist's "Rock Your World" Hot Sauce stacked up against some spicy competition.
Are these testers experts in the field of hot sauce, you ask? Well, through some research I discovered there was no actual Ph.D. offered in this particular field. So how are these eaters qualified?
Simple: They love wings. I've borne witness on numerous occasions to their debauchery of the 10-cent wing special at The Mill restaurant in Keene, N.H. At times it got downright ugly.Three levels of rank exist within this motley crew of testers:
Steel-tongued (likes the hot), One-alarmers (likes some kick), and Crybaby (get out of the kitchen, fool!). We hope you can relate to at least one of them. All products are distributed by Ashley Food Co., Inc., based in Dedham, Mass. And if you're looking for something to blow your top, check into 'Mad Dog 357.' We banned Mad Dog from the competition and, quite frankly, it should be flat-out illegal.So here we go... five different sauces (in order of tasting) and three testers with taste buds to burn.
Mad Dog Liquid Fire: This sauce uses smoking-hot peppers and "zesty" garlic. Great for Bloody Marys, hot wings, or chili.  Steel-tongued: Got some zing, but not overwhelming. The bite sneaks up on you, but only a nibble.
One-alarmers: Definitely hot with a nice peppery flavor. Could put down a dozen.Crybaby: The name threw me off, but not too bad. I like the pepper taste.Heat index: 3 peppers: Hot
A fire-roasted habanero pepper sauce that is visibly loaded down with a boatload of spices.Steel-tongued: On the mild side of hot, no doubt. Got a full, spicy flavor.One-alarmers: Got a sweet flavor to it... but definitely spicy. It's a nice blend of peppers.Crybaby: It's hot. That's all I can give you. Hot.Heat index 2 1/2 peppers: A comfortable zing
Made with habanero peppers, onions, garlic, and lime juice with a hint of sweetness.Steel-tongued: Definitely sweet, but a creeper that packs a wallop. Hottest yet.One-alarmers: Something isn't right about this. Food shouldn't be this hot, period. Can hot be a flavor?Crybaby: No opinion. Opted-out after previous tasters' reactions.Heat index: 5 peppers: Ridiculous
Made with orange habanero peppers, celery seed, and red peppers, plus a number of spices.Steel-tongued: Not that hot. Sweet. It's got a nice aroma.One-alarmers: A heater. The lips are getting numb, though, and confusion is setting in.Crybaby: It doesn't seem as hot, but I have no idea. My mouth is on fireHeat index: 3 peppers: Hot
Rock and roll meet hot sauce in this smoky-smooth blend.Steel-tongued: Mild, but very tasty. It's got a sweet, smoky flavor.One-alarmers: It's got a barbecue-hickory flavor. Nice zing. The best tasting one yet.Crybaby: Not butt-@ss hot, finally. It's got zing and good taste. My favorite.Heat index: 2 peppers: A comfortable zing
Joe Perry's 'Rock Your World' Boneyard BrewOrange KrushIdiot BoyzMountainman]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Some Like it Very Hot]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/some-like-it-very-hot</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[ashley food company hot sauce, endorphin rush, habanero extract, Mad Dog 357]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 29 Mar 2003 17:36:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/some-like-it-very-hot-314730.jpg?v=1587651460</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Some Like it Very Hot
By Nathan Cobb, Globe Correspondent, 3/29/2003
DEDHAM -- Poking through the various containers inside the large metal cabinet in the basement office of his rented home -- the vinegar, the seasonings, the spices, and so on -- David Ashley finally finds what he's looking for. ''I need rubber gloves for this,'' he says, donning latex and carefully lifting a dark brown bottle from the shelf with two hands.
It contains pure habanero extract, the essence of the hottest pepper on earth. Spill it on your hands and it will burn you. Spill it into your stomach and . . . well, take a guess. Ashley gingerly opens the bottle and puts his nose in its general vicinity. ''Whoa,'' he says, drawing his head back quickly. ''Whoa".
For the loquacious Ashley, 52, such jolts are part of the game. Ashley Food Co. Inc., for which he's not only the full-time head honcho but the sole honcho, is a major player in the hot sauce arms race. In the niche market of ''superhot,'' where concoctions have names such as Mega Death and Gourmet Insanity, his stove-top recipes more than hold their own among radical chiliheads. Five years ago, his Mad Dog Inferno was tested by one mail-order company and deemed to be the hottest sauce in the world at the time, and Ashley has since far outdistanced that creation with a liquid fireball called Mad Dog 357.
''I have a friend who really didn't know what Mad Dog 357 was and marinated chicken in it,'' recalls the heat meister. ''Her husband tried it and ended up putting his face underwater for about 20 minutes.'' Ashley, who sheepishly acknowledges he doesn't eat a lot of spicy food, grew up in Chicago and Manhattan and has held a litany of jobs, including a caretaker, hi-fi salesman, taxi driver, and courier. He readily reveals a past that included its share of alcohol and drugs. It's perhaps no surprise that he feels many people are hooked on ingesting heat because it gives them an ''endorphin rush,'' a natural high that results when hot sauces trigger the brain to produce pain-killing compounds. ''This stuff has become the drug of choice for people who don't do drugs anymore,'' he Contends.
In any case, these are not your father's hot sauces. Consider that the heat level of a sauce is determined by its amount of capsaicin, the substance that makes peppers hot. Consider that a measuring system for capsaicin was developed in the early 1900s by a pharmacist named Wilbur Scoville and that the heat of peppers is still measured in Scoville units. Consider that Tabasco Brand Pepper Sauce, most folks' idea of a reasonably spicy concoction, has a Scoville level of 2,500 to 5,000. And consider that Mad Dog Inferno is rated at about 89,000 Scovilles, while Mad Dog 357 weighs in at, yes, 357,000 units. ''I've had 2.3 million Scovilles on my tongue,'' Ashley says, ''and it was like dropping cigarette ash in my mouth.''
Like a number of other hot sauce '' distributors'' -- his recipes are his own, but his mixing and bottling are done under contract in Florida -- Ashley now markets pepper extracts, i.e. capsaicin. Sold as ''food additives,'' his Mad Dog's Revenge and 1 Million Scoville additives are rated at a million units each. Both -- as well as his Mad Dog 357 sauce --include a disclaimer stating that the buyer agrees, by opening the bottle, that he is using the stuff at his own risk, will warn anyone he gives it to, won't sue for damages, and isn't inebriated.
Ashley's journey along the highway of heat began more than a decade ago when he and his wife, Mary Ann, began cooking up a natural barbecue sauce on the stove of their tiny Brighton apartment. Friends liked the tomato-based preparation, with its hint of molasses and smoke. So in 1991, with credit cards providing the financing, a one-man business was born. Sales were only $8,000 the first year, but a home-brewed hot sauce called Liquid Fire (about 25,000 Scovilles) was added two years later, leading to a revelation. ''I noticed that heat was really, really selling,'' Ashley recalls. ''People just loved hot stuff, and the hotter the better.''
Mad Dog Inferno, the molasses-based recipe that came to Ashley in the middle of the night and included pepper extract, was created in 1994. But it wasn't until four years later, when the popular mail-order company Mo Hotta Mo Betta crowned this sauce the hottest of them all, that bottles flew out the door. ''My sales just rocketed,'' Ashley says. ''In 1998 alone, I sold $70,000 worth of Inferno.'' Today, Ashley says his five super hots, including the two food additives, represent about 35 percent of his total 2002 sales of $300,000.
But there are moments when Ashley, who is proud of his own cooking and of the flavors he has mixed into his less fiery sauces, sounds like Dr. Frankenstein fretting about the monster he has wrought. After all, what if someone takes a swig of one of these things? ''I do worry about that, to be honest,'' he says. ''I never really wanted to go this hot. But the consumer wants it, and I'm in business to make money.''
Still, there are limits. For a while, Ashley says, he was considering marketing a 6 million Scoville additive, a product that would have been three times hotter than most self-defense pepper sprays. ''I was going to call it King of Pain,'' he says. ''But then I started thinking. I mean, I have a 4-year-old son. Obviously, something like this could hurt a kid. I just didn't feel right. Besides, 6 million Scovilles is just absurd.''And already passed. At last look, the hot sauce arms race had passed 7 million Scoville units and was still rising.
Discoveries appear on alternate Saturdays. Ideas for subject matter -- unusual people, places, events, etc. -- are welcome. Nathan Cobb can be reached at cobb@globe.com or 617-929-7266.This story ran on page E1 of the Boston Globe on 3/29/2003.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mad Dog 357 Hot Sauce Collector’s Edition]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/mad-dog-357-hot-sauce-collector-s-edition</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[Mad Dog 357 Collectors Hot Sauce]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 22 Oct 2002 16:40:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/mad-dog-357-hot-sauce-collectors-edition-770040.jpg?v=1587649169</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Mad Dog 357 Hot Sauce Collector’s Edition
Dedham, Massachusetts, October 22, 2002--The question of which hot sauce delivers the most heat has been a source of fiery debate among chili-heads for years. Number one with a bullet! Made with 6,000,000 Scoville Pepper Extract. That’s the 357 Mad Dog Collectors Edition packing 600,000 sizzlin’ Scoville units, along with the heavyweight crown of the Worlds Hottest Hot Sauce ever made. Sporting an oh so apropos golden bullet on a key chain, fastened to the bottle of this killer concoction, making this hotter than hot sauce a very cool collectible. Do ya feel lucky punk?
357 Mad Dog Collector’s Edition is an all-natural, complex sauce that begins with, Ultra Pure 6,000,000 Scoville Pepper Extract, fiery hot Habanero Peppers, 160 Scoville Super Cayenne Peppers; with red wine vinegar, garlic, onion and evaporated cane juice. The result is a sauce that packs all the heat you can handle wrapped around a wider range of flavors. Quite simply, it’s more intriguing than anything you’d ever expect in a sauce that is truly "The World's Hottest Sauce."
With a legal warning on the bottle, about five-seconds after you taste the recommended dose of one scant drop or less, prepare your mouth and mind for five to 20 minutes of agony that all true chili-heads fully understand and appreciate. So what are you waiting for? Join the chili-brigade and indulge in the intense and long-lasting savory eruption that comes from just a drop of 357 Mad Dog Collector’s Edition. Because it’s so powerful, the average chili freak can get approximately 1,000,000 mind-blowing, fiery doses in each 5-oz. bottle.
Today pepper heat can be measured both organoleptically (that is by taste) and instrumentally. In the latter, an instrumental test uses high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) to determine the number of capsaicinoids in parts per million, with results reported as "percent capsaicinoid by HPLC. 357 Mad Dog Collector’s Edition is a super sizzling 600,000 HPLC, which will blow away the nearest competitor. 357 Mad Dog Collector’s Edition Hot Sauce packs an incendiary burn that just may go beyond its name.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Southern Living Magazine]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/southern-living-magazine</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[Mad Dog BBQ, Southern Living]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 27 Jul 2002 16:41:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/southern-living-magazine-740871.jpg?v=1590523828</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Southern Living Magazine Reviews Original BBQ Sauce
 BOTTLED BARBECUE SAUCES
Assistant Foods Editor Scott Jones suggests if you don’t make your own sauce, try these bottled options.  Mad Dog Original BBQ Sauce, Ashley Food Company, 1-800-378-4359 or www.ashleyfood.com.  Scott says this is the best-bottled barbecue sauce he’s had.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Wine Spectator]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/wine-spectator</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[Mad Dog BBQ Sauce, mad dog ultra hot, wine spectator, wine spectator food review]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 30 Jun 2002 16:43:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/wine-spectator-488059.jpg?v=1587648552</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Wine Spectator
June 30, 2002
No two barbecue sauces are the same, with each recipe providing its own combination of snap, tang and spice.
The French may have given the world bordelaise, hollandaise, and demi-glace, but America gets the credit for barbecue sauce.  “French sauces are great, but they’re not much fun,” says Steven Raichlen, whose decidedly fun “Beer-Can Chicken: And 74 Other Offbeat Recipes for the Grill includes barbecue sauce recipes with ingredients such as black cherry soda, prune juice and Belgian beer.  Barbecue sauce should not be confused with barbecue, the method of slow-cooking for a long period over low, indirect heat.  With this type of cooking, sauce, if any, is added at the table, though many barbecue purists shun sauce entirely.  Barbecue sauce is meant for foods that are grilled over direct heat, often high heat, for a relatively short period of time.
As with barbecue cooking, barbecue sauces have regional characteristics.  Kansas City-style sauce is the most common nationwide.  It has a tomato or ketchup base and pronounced sweet, sour and smoky elements.  Barbecue sauce from nearby St. Louis usually has a tomato foundation but without the smoke (which normally comes from bottled liquid smoke).  North Carolina’s barbecue sauce, traditionally put on that state’s beloved pulled pork shoulder at the table, is vinegar-based; the sauce is clear in eastern North Carolina and tomato-red in the western half.
Mustard is the key ingredient in the sauces of Georgia, South Carolina, and Mississippi.  White barbecue sauce, made from mayonnaise, cider vinegar, and black pepper, is big in Alabama, where people have it on chicken.  In Texas, beer and chilies form the basis of a rather watery sauce.  In the Southwest, from New Mexico to California, tomato salsa and pico de gallo qualify as barbecue sauces, since that’s how they’re often used.  And there are scores of other ethnic sauces for grilled foods, including mojo, a blend of lime juice, cumin and garlic favored in Miami’s Latino community.
I tasted 11 brands of barbecue sauce, along with a few homemade versions, on chicken breasts and slabs of pork spareribs.  My two favorites were Stubb’s Original and Bog Bottom.  Stubb’s, from Stubb’s Bar-B-Q Restaurant in Austin, Texas, was assertive without being overbearing and had an almost perfect balance of sweet, smoky and spicy flavors.  Bog Bottom, made in Wilmington, N.C., by Wagner Gourmet Foods, had a meaty quality, a smooth rich texture, and a tangy finish.
Though a step down from the top two, I also liked Mad Dog Ultra Hot, from Dedham, Mass.  It was one of the hottest brands I tried, though I found the heat manageable.  It was also pleasantly sweet, with a nice molasses note.  Next came Bull’s-Eye Original (sauces listed as “Original” usually have a hotter version, too), made in Garland, Texas.  It had the same elements as Stubb’s, but was a bit heavy-handed with the smoke and had a spice profile that reminded me of Worcestershire sauce.  Roadhouse, made in Des Plaines, Ill., was zesty, with a chunky texture, a fruity sweetness and a whiff of what seemed like mesquite.
Except for its strong molasses undertone, I thought KC Masterpiece had a pretty mainstream taste, more suburban than the country.  Two Buddies Macho Mesquite, produced in Southern California, looked and tasted more like salsa than barbecue…missing the rest of the article?]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Cook This Way Joe Perry Rocks Your World]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/cook-this-way-joe-perry-rocks-your-world</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[guitarist joe perry, hot sauce joe perry, Joe Perry, Rock Your World Hot Sauce, rocker joe perry]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 24 Jun 2002 16:45:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/cook-this-way-joe-perry-rocks-your-world-433504.jpg?v=1590685730</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Cook This Way - Joe Perry ‘Rocks Your World’ with his new hot sauce
By BROOKE LEISTERNEWS STAFF WRITER
There’s a lot of sauce the members of Aerosmith don’t touch anymore. Hot sauce is not one of them.
At least that’s true for guitarist Joe Perry.
"I’ve been a fan of hot sauce and hot, spicy food for as long as I remember. On the road, I have my sauces with me. It kind of help to have your own stash, " Perry said in a telephone interview.
Since late spring, Perry’s added another sauce to his stash. His own.
In May, he launched Joe Perry’s Rock Your World Boneyard Brew Hot Sauce. Described as an " every day " sauce, ingredients include vinegar, red bell peppers, lime juice, evaporated cane juice, habanero peppers, onions, garlic, chipotle peppers, salt, and xanthan gum. The sauce is made by Ashley Food Co. Inc. based in Dedham.
To celebrate the new product, Jake’s Dixie Roadhouse in Waltham is hosting a hot sauce release party tonight. Perry is not scheduled to attend.
The menu will feature Rock Your World fiery shrimp served with jalapeno and cheddar fried grit cakes and Aerosmith's Get Your Wings hot wings. Additionally, the Moody Street restaurant will also give away a pair of tickets to one of the band’s upcoming shows at the Tweeter Center as well as plenty of bottles of sauce, including one autographed bottle.
Although Perry is a partner at Mount Blue — the Norwell restaurant he owns with four others including bandmate Steven Tyler, the sauce marks the legendary guitarist’s first foray into the world of culinary products.
" I had a couple of his (David Ashley, president of Ashley Foods) sauces on my shelf. I saw that he was a local guy and about four years ago I called him and we started talking, " Perry said. " We had a lot of similar tastes and ideas about where it could go. "
The only problem was time. A busy touring and recording schedule left little time for the Rock &amp; Roll Hall of Fame inductee to devote to his sauce.
That changed last winter. After a Japanese tour early in the year, the band spent six weeks in Maui, Hawaii, relaxing and working on new songs. Perry also spent time developing his sauce." I found myself mixing different sauces together to find out what was just right for my palate. I didn’t want to use foods with preservatives or flavorings, " Perry said.
While he admits being stricter about his diet a few years ago, he still tries to eat healthily, avoiding foods with preservatives. " I try to eat as healthy as I can and I try to steer my family in that direction, " said the South Shore resident, who is enjoying time at home before embarking on the band’s next tour with Kid Rock and Run D.M.C. The tour kicks off in August.
" We used three or four different sauces as a touch base. Heat is so subjective, and flavor to one person is so subjective. You kind of has to reach a common ground. We used one of his (Ashley’s sauces) as a common ground, " Perry said. " ... I wanted something that was a little more day to day than something that was really hot.
" ... We really wanted to keep the quality high and every aspect of it had to be high. "For about a month, Perry and Ashley sent packages across the country via Federal Express. Ashley sent samples to Hawaii, which Perry tasted and sent back. " Federal Express from Hawaii takes two days. Everything took a little longer but it also took a little longer to live with each taste, " Perry said.
Of the sauce, Ashley says, " He was in Hawaii and Japan the whole time. We did everything by phone and I laid out the whole business plan. By the middle of February, we were done with the formula. "
While Ashley began making his sauces, including his signature Mad Dog BBQ Sauce in 1985, he did not incorporate his business until 1991. " I started tinkering in the kitchen and Mad Dog BBQ Sauce was born. The original has a nice bite, while the hot is pretty hot for a BBQ sauce. "
Ashley offers a full line of sauces made from fresh, natural ingredients. His Mad Dog Inferno sauce ranked as the " World’s Hottest Hot Sauce " by the Mo Hotta Mo Betta catalog. The recommended dosage is " one scant drop or less. "
From the beginning, Perry wanted to steer his sauce away from Inferno heat levels. " I was thinking that the people who would first buy the sauce weren’t hot freaks, " he said.Described as having a low to medium heat level, Perry uses the sauce regularly." When I’m having eggs for lunch I don’t necessarily want to blow my brains out. I use it more like ketchup. I wanted a good day-to-day sauce, " said Perry, adding he likes it best on hamburgers.
Professing a longtime interest in food and cooking, Perry muses his love of hot and spicy foods that come from his Italian and Portuguese roots. " Both sides are known for their love of spices, " he added.
While he enjoys preparing ribs on the grill, his first food love is preparing spaghetti sauce. " To me it’s no surprise — being Italian and growing up in the kitchen. It would be sacrilegious not to, " he said.
Asked if the other band members gave the sauce their seal of approval, Perry said, " Steven likes spicy food, not really hot. Other than that, the other guys are kind of amateurs. "Joe Perry’s Rock Your World Boneyard Brew Hot Sauce is available at joeperrysrockyourworld for $7.99. A bottle with a guitar pick is $8.99. The sauce is also available at various stores, including Newbury Comics.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Ashley Food Company Teams Up With Joe Perry, Legendary Guitarist Of The Band Aerosmith]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/ashley-food-company-teams-up-with-joe-perry-legendary-guitarist-of-the-band-aerosmith</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[ashley food and joe perry, feature, Joe Perry]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 01 Jun 2002 16:46:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/ashley-food-company-teams-up-with-joe-perry-legendary-guitarist-of-the-band-aerosmith-953474.jpg?v=1587649046</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Dedham, Massachusetts, June 1, 2002 - Joe Perry has rocked many a world in his 30+ year career as Aerosmith's lead guitarist. Now Joe has teamed up with Ashley Food Company president David Ashley to rock the world of a whole new audience, hot sauce lovers! Yes, it's true, Perry's newest #1 hit is "Joe Perry's Rock Your World Boneyard Brew Hot Sauce". With a mystical flavor as memorable as its moniker, the Boneyard Brew will surely entice the culinary enthusiast in your family. "What gives Joe Perry's Rock Your World Boneyard Brew Hot Sauce its truly distinctive flavor is its key ingredients" - fresh Habanero peppers, tangy fresh squeezed lime juice, zesty onions and garlic, Chipotle peppers, fresh red bell peppers, and red wine vinegar to create a delicious blend that's perfect for dipping, chicken and pork dishes, marinades, Mexican food, fish and shrimp recipes.
Founded in 1991, Ashley Food Company has quickly earned an international reputation for high-quality products made with only premium, all-natural ingredients, hand measured and cooked to perfection. It's this attention to detail and quality care that caught the attention of Joe Perry, a hot sauce aficionado. The Axeman has been involved with every step of development; from the way the sauce tastes to the type of bottle and packaging concept. To Joe, cooking mirrors rock and roll. Says Perry, "if you' re gonna play, play it loud. If you're gonna cook, cook with fire!!!!" Words to live by. Perry admits that the first batch of Boneyard Brew is only medium on the heat scale. But fear not firebreathers, in the pipeline is another version that will definitely be hotter and more painful (though this version is a great everyday sauce).
The Sauce made its national debut alongside its canine cousins, the award-winning MAD DOG products at the Fiery Food Show, March 1-3,2002 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
 ]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mad Dog Sauces for U.S. Special Forces]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/mad-dog-sauces-for-u-s-special-forces</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[freedom sauce, hot sauce for U.S. Special Forces, mad dog hot sauce donation, Special Forces in Afghanistan]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 27 Apr 2002 16:48:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/mad-dog-sauces-for-us-special-forces-756116.jpg?v=1587649089</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Mad Dog Sauces for U.S. Special Forces stationed in Afghanistan
Dedham, Massachusetts, April 15, 2002--Ashley Food Company, Inc.- Markers of Mad Dog, Mad Cat and Idiot Boyz hot sauces, at the request of Chapter 38, Special Forces Association has made a donation of their products to U.S. Special Forces stationed in Afghanistan.
According to John Senatore, moral support officer, Chapter 38, Special Forces Association "We need some hot sauce to make their meals taste better". David Ashley, President of Ashley Food Co. Inc. announced that the company along with Sauce Crafters Inc. had sent 94 cases of Freedom sauce as well as an assortment of 25 cases of the other hot sauces that Ashley Food and Sauce Crafters make.
Freedom sauce, according to Ashley was created to raise money for the victims of 9/11 by Ashley Food and Sauce Crafters. Among the other products sent was 357 Mad Dog, billed as "The Hottest Sauce In The World", Mad Cat, Green Amigo, Idiot Boyz, Colon Cleaner, Rectal Rocket Fuel and Widow No Survivors. Ashley Food Company hopes that in some small way this lends support to our men and women risking their lives to stop the worldwide menace of terrorism.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mad Cat Hot Sauce Wins Scovie Award]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/mad-cat-hot-sauce-wins-scovie-award</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[mad cat first place award, Mad Cat Hot Sauce, national fiery foods, scovie awards david ashley, scovie awards mad dog sauce]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 01 Dec 2001 17:51:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/mad-cat-hot-sauce-wins-scovie-award-331354.jpg?v=1587649749</sr:image><description><![CDATA[DEDHAM, MASSACHUSETTS COMPANY WINS MAJOR INTERNATIONAL FOOD INDUSTRY AWARD
December 1, 2001--David Ashley owner of Ashley Food Company, Inc. of Dedham, Massachusetts has further demonstrated the commitment his company has to excellence.  Ashley Food Company, Inc., has received two, 2002 Scovie Awards, widely accepted as the top award for hot and spicy foods internationally.
Ashley Food Company, Inc. won a 1st Place award for its MAD CAT Hot Sauce in the Habanero Hot Sauce category and 357 MAD DOG Hot Sauce won 3rd Place in the Super Hot Sauce Label category.  Nearly 600 products competed for top honors. The Scovie Awards, which are presented by Fiery-Foods and Barbecue Magazine, along with Sunbelt Shows, producers of the National Fiery Foods &amp; Barbecue Show, recently announced the winners of the 2002 Scovie Awards at the Florida Fiery Foods and Barbecue Show.  The awards, named for Wilbur Scoville who pioneered a rating scale for spicy foods, have become the industry standard for excellence in over 60 categories of fiery foods.
Ashley Food Company has been making all-natural, award-winning products for over 10 years. They make products that range from mild with a great flavor all the way to the hottest sauce you have ever tasted. In the past 10 years, their product line has won over 50 state and national awards, including many national titles. Their products have appeared on "The Today Show", "Friends", "King of Queens" "Regis &amp; Kathie Lee Show" and have been featured in "The Wall Street Journal", "Southern Living", “ Cook’s Illustrated” and "Playboy". Ashley Food Company products will also appear on "The Drew Cary Show", "Inside Swartz", "The Division", "Dharma &amp; Greg" and "Tikiville".
Dave DeWitt, long considered the father of the fiery foods industry and producer of the National Fiery Foods &amp; Barbecue Show, noted, “As the North American palate has become more ‘global,’ fiery foods products have become more gourmet and designed less for shock value.  This year’s Scovie winners really exemplify the diversity and quality of this industry.  It is not so much about heat as about the wonderful flavors of fiery foods.”
SCOVIE AWARD WINNER
MAD CAT HOT SAUCE 1st Place Winner Habanero Hot Sauce Category
357 MAD DOG HOT SAUCE 3rd Place Winner Super Hot Sauce Labels
Many of the Scovie award-winning products, as well as thousands of other products, will be on display at the 14th Annual National Fiery Foods &amp; Barbecue Show, March 1-3 in Albuquerque, NM.  For information on exhibiting in the National Fiery Foods Show, call 505.873.8690, or visit www.fiery-foods.com.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Long lines, hot food: Pig ‘n’ Pepper’s back in town]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/long-lines-hot-food-pig-n-pepper-s-back-in-town</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Oct 2001 20:52:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/long-lines-hot-food-pig-n-peppers-back-in-town-469813.jpg?v=1587651068</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Lowell Sun, October 8, 2001
Long lines, hot food: Pig ‘n’ Pepper’s back in town
Westford -- Australia native Paul MacKay looked out from behind his sizzling grill -- jam-packed with ribs and chicken -- at the throng that packed the 4-H Fairgrounds yesterday for the 10th annual Pig ‘n’ Pepper festival.
“I notice that people love standing in line,” he said in an Aussie accent as he dipped a mini-mop into a vat of barbecue sauce and slathered the concoction over the racks of ribs lined up on the hot grill.  “But maybe that’s not their choice.”
Long lines were the order of the day yesterday, the first day of the Pig ’n’ Pepper, a festival of barbecued delights and country music that benefits the Westford and Carlisle school systems.Thousands of hungry festival-goers trudged through woods off South Chelmsford Road to the fairgrounds, which was hosting the yearly fest for the first time.  For the past several years, the party was held at Kimball’s Farm on Littleton Road; organizers made the move to accommodate the growing crowds.
But reviews of the new venue were mixed.
At 2 o’clock yesterday, the lines at the barbecue vendors were outrageously long.  A string of patrons waiting to buy pulled pork and barbecue chicken sandwiches at the stand for Nick’s Thrill on the Grill were the lucky ones -- their hourlong wait was the shortest for any of the six vendors.
“Boy, these better be good ribs to wait this long,” muttered one man as he neared the front.Prior to the weekend, organizers said as many as 40,000 New Englanders might flock to the barbecue if the weather cooperated.
Yesterday, under bright sunny skies, Pig ‘n’ Pepper Chair Jeff Brown said the crowd was much larger than organizers had anticipated.
Though firm numbers were not available, Brown estimated yesterday’s crowd was the largest in the event’s history.  He said he received only about a dozen complaints about the wait for food, but acknowledged that logistics at the fairgrounds might need to be tweaked to better handle the crowds.
Away from the long vending lines, the party was in full swing.  The Porch Rockers played cajun swing music to an enthusiastic crowd of families.  Nearby, children packed the new Kid Spot play area where offerings included face-painting and pony rides.
On an open field near the back of the grounds, more than 30 amateur barbecuers were at work, fine-tuning their entries in the various cook-offs.
“We have a lot of fun,” said Dirk Burrowes, a member of the Bastey Boys barbecue squad, for which the annual barbecue contest is simply a hobby.
The team’s captain, Andy King, was hard at work over a handmade grill, cooking a tequila lime orange roughy that would be the Bastey Boys’ entry in the “Chef’s Choice” category.
Nearby, Garry Howard of the Cambridge-based Liquid Smoke team cut into a fig and chipotle pepper pork loin to make sure it was cooked through.
Howard, a Texas native who has lived in New England for 10 years, called the Pig ‘n’ Pepper the “biggest” barbecue event in the area.”  He said he was shocked to find so many barbecue enthusiasts in the Northeast.
“I was really amazed,” he said.  “I think it’s great.”
In the pepper tent, where sauces, relish, and peppers compete in several different categories, the best action was at the table holding the entries in the “Hottest Hot Sauce” category.
A bottle of “Uncle Mike’s 402 Hot Sauce” was adorned with a skull-and-crossbones label and a warning: “Use extreme caution when tasting this product.  Not for the faint-hearted.”But the three-member jury was more than up to the challenge.
“Puffery,” said judge Alex Parker of Carlisle after sampling the sauce with a toothpick.“Pure puffery.”
“There’s some heat there,” conceded judge Ivan Bausch of Lexington.
The sauce that caused the most reaction was the “Mad Dog Inferno 1999 Limited Reserve,” which sent judge Paul Rosenthal scrambling for a jar of plain yogurt -- the most effective antidote to dull the pepper’s heat.
Just to his side, Bausch’s eyes welled up as he drew measured, heavy breaths.
“I feel like I’ve got razors in my throat,” he gasped after tasting the Mad Dog Limited. “That’s hotter than hell,” the 66-year-old Parker said softly, his eyes closed.
After he recovered, Bausch talked about how he came to this role as judge of the hottest contest going.  He first came to the Pig ‘n’ Pepper as a patron, he said, but soon saw that his skills and interests could be put to use.
“I have credentials: I’m willing to eat it,” he said.
“It’s beyond food,” he added, in a statement that could have applied to the entire festival.  “It’s entertainment.”
The Pig ‘n’ Pepper continues today from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., at the 4-H Fairgrounds in Westford.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Idiot Boyz Habanero Hot Sauce Launched at Fiery Food Show]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/idiot-boyz-habanero-hot-sauce-launched-at-fiery-food-show</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[Fiery Food Show, habanero pepper sauce, Idiot Boyz Hot Sauce]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 23 Apr 2001 16:53:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/idiot-boyz-habanero-hot-sauce-launched-at-fiery-food-show-831616.jpg?v=1587650339</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Idiot Boyz Habanero Hot Sauce The World’s Hottest Sauce” Launched at Fiery Food Show
Dedham, Massachusetts, April 23, 2001--True to form, David Ashley, President, Ashley Food Company, has created what taste like two more sure winners in the hot sauce category: Idiot Boyz Habanero Hot Sauce and 357 Mad Dog Hot Sauce, truly the world’s hottest sauce. 357 Mad Dog is a killer sauce packing 357,000 Scoville units of heat. One hit will blow you away! A blend of Chile extract, fresh Habanero peppers, 160,000 Scoville super Cayenne peppers, garlic, and onion makes a sauce that can truly take your breath away. 357 Mad Dog Hot Sauce is available in a 5 oz. bottles unit priced at $4.50.
According to Mr. Ashley, "What gives Idiot Boyz Hot Sauce its distinctive flavor is its key ingredient--fresh, natural habanero peppers. In fact, hot pepper lovers recognize the habanero as one of the world's hottest peppers.” Idiot Boyz Habanero Hot Sauce tempers the fire of the habanero pepper with its other fresh, natural ingredients - tangy lime juice, zesty onions and garlic, and red wine vinegar and a dash of natural sugar to create a delicious blend that perfect for dipping, oriental food, chicken and pork dishes, marinades, Mexican food, fish and shrimp recipes. Idiot Boyz Habanero Hot Sauce is available in a 5 oz. bottles unit priced at $2.50 for wholesale trade.
These crazy sauces made their national debut alongside award-winning Mad Dog and Mad Cat products, at the Fiery Food Show, March 2-4,2001 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[In the Hot-Sauce Biz, When You’re Hot, It May Not Be Enough]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/in-the-hot-sauce-biz-when-you-re-hot-it-may-not-be-enough</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 15 May 2000 16:56:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/in-the-hot-sauce-biz-when-youre-hot-it-may-not-be-enough-421219.jpg?v=1587651721</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Wall Street Journal, Monday, May 15, 2000
In the Hot-Sauce Biz, When You’re Hot, It May Not Be Enough
Dave and Cathy Lutes Go Past Tabasco to Insane; At the Fiery Food Show
Dave Lutes sells about 8,000 cases of ultra-hot hot sauce a year.
The last time he tried some of it himself was three years ago, on a tortilla chip in Albuquerque.  “I almost went down,” Mr. Lutes says, recalling the fit of wheezing, tearing and hiccuping the stuff caused.
That’s because “hot” doesn’t quite describe the latest hot sauces.  Things have gone way beyond Tabasco, the Louisiana red-pepper standby, as hot-sauce makers escalate the most absurd arms race in the history of condiments.  Even the sauce makers admit it’s hard for anybody to make fine distinctions between products that are so much hotter than hot.  And is something truly palatable when it is as potent as the pepper spray used for self-defense?
The quest makes business sense: Every day, all across the country, macho guys walk into little stores that specialize in hot sauce, puff themselves up and ask: “What’s the hottest thing you got?”
The little stores get their products from purveyors like Mr. Lutes (pronounced “Loots”), a burly 49-year old who runs Hot Shots with his wife, Cathy, 50, from an 8,000-square-foot warehouse in Charlotte, N.C.  The Lutes don’t make the hot sauce; they distribute it.  Cathy Lutes, a former high-school teacher, has also sworn off the ultrahot.  “You see what it does even when it gets on your skin,” she says.  (It burns.)  The Lutes also sell a fire extinguisher -- in the form of BurnAway, spray bottles of hot-sauce antidote (soaps and oils) to spray on the affected skin.
And the Luteses ask customers to sign optional disclaimers before buying certain brands, particularly Dave’s Insanity Private Reserve and Pure Cap, which are among the hottest of the hot.  It’s a “food additive,” the disclaimer warns.  Don’t drink the stuff or you’ll regret it.Or worse.  The hottest hots, stuff like Blair’s 3 a.m. Reserve, could kill you, says Marlin Bensinger, a chemical engineer at Chromtec in North Palm Beach, Fla., who tests pepper extract -- a resin of capsaicin, the chemical that makes peppers hot and gives some of the ultrahots their kick.  (It’s also used in repellents that halt charging grizzly bears.)  Mr. Bensinger fears that somebody might swill ultrahot pepper sauce on a dare, get it into his lungs and go into respiratory arrest.
Consumers, meanwhile, still clamor for the hottest.  So the Luteses’ suppliers -- manufacturers of such brands as Ground Zero, Cyanide D.O.A., and Sudden Death -- vie for the honor.  To stay on the cutting edge, the Luteses rely on friends, including Grant Lane, 39, who runs PyroPepper.com from his house on Lake Lure in the North Carolina mountains.  “It has to do with taste buds,” he says.
Mr. Lane dabs toothpick samples onto his tongue.  A half-second later the grenade goes off in his mouth.  “I enjoy it, and I crave it,” he says.  When he makes spaghetti sauce, he has to cook up a milder batch for his wife.
The Lutes also take to the road to gather intelligence, as they did in March at the annual Fiery Foods trade show in Nevada.  There, at the Reno Hilton, hot-sauce maker Paul Feagan presents Mr. Lutes with a 4-inch-tall bottle of his latest concoction, Da’Bomb…The Final Answer.  It’s got a drawing of flaming A-bomb super-imposed on a background of skulls and cross-bones.  Da’ Bomb claims to be the hottest sauce ever, scoring 1.5 million “Scovilles.”Wilbur Scoville invented the heat gauge in 1912.  His method was to ask a five-person tasting panel to see how much sugar water it took to eliminate the hotness of a pepper.  On this scale, it would require 1,981 gallons of sweetened water to neutralize a teaspoon of Da’ Bomb.  High-pressure liquid chromatography, or HPLC, is a more modern, albeit expensive, way to accomplish the same objective.  But as in DNA testing, results are usually challenged if they don’t go your way.
Mr. Lutes looks at Da’ Bomb and eventually carries it over to a booth occupied by the legendary Dave Hirschkop, the 32-year-old, baby-faced granddaddy of ultra-hot sauces.  “Still the HOTTEST.  Still the Best,” proclaims a sign at his booth.  “Shake Well and Good Luck!” the labels add.  Mr. Hirschkop’s Insanity Sauce is the Luteses’ No. 1 seller.  The two men stand on either side of a counter, exchanging pleasantries.  Mr. Lutes suddenly rolls Da’ Bomb toward his good friend.
Mr. Hirschkop picks it up, with utter disdain.  “Ffffumphhhh,” he says.
“Says it’s 1.5 million Scovilles.”
“Send it to a lab,” Mr. Hirschkop says.  “Let’s see.”
Mr. Lutes himself is concerned about Da’ Bomb’s awesome retail price--$40 for one little bottle.  Most of the sauces he carries retail for less than $10.  But he tries never to underestimate the consumer appeal of combustibility--something that was hammered home to him seven years ago by a cop.
At the time, Mr. Lutes was starting up Hot Shots, having spent years in the restaurant supply business.  He had just pitched some Insanity Sauce to a Mexican restaurant in Atlanta.  The owners had insisted everyone share a fingertip taste.  Mr. Lutes joined in this camaraderie to seal the deal.  But while driving home, he rubbed his right eye, and the tears started streaming down his face.  He pulled his car off the road and flushed his burning eye with water.  He remembers the incident so well, he says, because he had to explain it to the policeman who stopped to check on him.
The cop said he was from Texas and could handle anything.  He stuck out his finger. Mr. Lutes poured on some hot sauce.  The cop gave it a lick and started dancing and twitching in a fairly dramatic demonstration of acute discomfort.  When the pain subsided, he bought the last three bottles Mr. Lutes had on him.
Ultrahot is a small niche of the $500 million-a-year salsa and hot-sauce market.  And the Luteses was in the right place at the right time in the early ‘90s when hot-sauce sales took off. The mainstream suppliers were doing well, too, led by Tabasco sauce, made by McIlhenny Co. of Avery Island, La.  The company today claims to have a 30% share in supermarkets and more than 50% in the whole “food service” category, which includes restaurants.  Paul C.P. McIlhenny, the company’s current president and chief executive calls the hottest upstart superhots “the lunatic-fringe labels.”
As the Luteses’ business grew, they added hundreds of sauces in their lineup, many with wacky labels such as LiquidStupid, PMS in a Bottle and Pain Is Good.  To get the stuff hotter than a habanero pepper, some sauce makers started to add distilled pepper extracts.  And the boasts broke out like the sweat from a jalapeno.
By 1998, hot-sauce middleman Tim Eidson had had enough.  From his Mo’ Hotta-Mo’ Betta office in San Luis Obispo, Calif., he sent 120 hot sauces out for the HPLC testing, which can cost $60 a bottle and gets results that are reported in Scoville units.  Even as Mo’ Hotta published its findings (the winner was Mad Dog Inferno,) the race toward mutually assured destruction grew hotter, eventually passing 100-times Tabasco on the Scoville scale.Labeling and memorable names are important, even with the fairly hots, which make up about 35% to 40% of the Luteses’ business.  “We can send you some Screaming Sphincter inventory if you need it,” Mr. Lutes tells a couple he runs into in Reno.  Andrew Przlomski, an urgent-care physician from Manitowish Waters, Wis., and his wife, Pepper Przlomski, own two locations of Doc’s Hot Shop.  Customers arrive by pontoon boats in the summer, snowmobiles in the winter.  “Biggest hot shops in Wisconsin,” Pepper Przlomski says.
“Chef Ivo.  He killed me,” Dr. Przlomski says, explaining a recent tasting.
“They get you pretty good?” Mr. Lutes asks.
“Yeah, he nooked me.”
Still, in Reno, it’s time to go see Chef Ivo Puidak of the Galena Canning Co. of Chicago, which makes salsas and hot sauces, among other things.
“I got some people telling me about your Blasting Sauce,” Mr. Lutes tells him.  The two start putting together a deal.  Mr. Lutes orders a bunch of cases of Blasting Sauce, and Chef Ivo tosses in some dynamite blasting displays.
Chef Ivo also sells Mr. Lutes on still other combustible comestibles, including Blasting Powder, a barbecue meat rub, and some fiery salsas and jellies.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Wings of Desire - POV, March 1999]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/wings-of-desire-pov-march-1999</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[hot sauce buffalo wings, Mad Dog, mad dog buffalo sauce, mad dog inferno buffalo wing sauce]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 31 Mar 1999 17:57:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/wings-of-desire-pov-march-1999-894135.jpg?v=1587648844</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Wings of Desire
Beyond Tabasco, beyond wasabi and jalapeno and habanero--beyond any fire that has ever crossed your lips--lies Mad Dog Inferno Hot Sauce Buffalo Wings.  These wings, available only at Burger Bob’s, an unassuming café in Bozeman, Montana, may very well represent the world’s spiciest meal.  The restaurant actually has a disclaimer that must be read aloud to all wing orderers: persons with heart or respiratory problems, and those under the age of eighteen, are not permitted to taste them.
The Mad Dog wings are only available on Wednesdays when Bob holds a contest to see if anyone can down a dozen of them.  At least half the contestants take one bit and quit.  Few finish more than three.  Two people in Bob’s wings contest’s brief ten-month history have cleaned their plates.  The first brought Pepto-Bismol and a milkshake; the second vomited shortly after ingesting his final wing.  It was what one might call a Pyrrhic victory.
And what did these gustatory Magellans earn for their trouble?  A refund of the $5.95 it cost for the platter, and not a penny more.   --Michael Finkel]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mad Dog Inferno Reserve The World’s Hottest Sauce]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/mad-dog-inferno-reserve-the-world-s-hottest-sauce</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[highest scoville count, inferno reserve, Mad Dog Inferno Reserve, World's Hottest Sauce]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Mar 1999 17:59:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/mad-dog-inferno-reserve-the-worlds-hottest-sauce-932507.jpg?v=1587651639</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Dedham, Mass., March 5, 1999---Last year, the question of which hot sauce delivers the most heat was answered when Mad Dog Inferno earned the title of “The World’s Hottest Sauce.”
Looking back, David Ashley, President of Ashley Food Company said, "Ever since I made my first batch, I knew Mad Dog Inferno was a scorcher of a hot sauce. I have never found a hot sauce that could blow away Mad Dog Inferno," For nine years David Ashley has been producing a line of all-natural sauces including Mad Dog BBQ Sauce, Mad Dog Liquid Fire Hot Sauce, Mad Dog Green Amigo Hot Sauce, and Mad Cat Hot Sauce.
Well, guess what? The hot just got hotter.And the heat goes on!
For the original study, after all of the sauces in the Mo Hotta Mo Betta catalog were independently tested at Chromtec, a West Palm Beach Florida laboratory, Mad Dog came back at a super-sizzling 89,560 HPLC, which was almost 6,000 Scoville units hotter than its nearest competitor. Unlike that sauces that singe in name only, Mad Dog Inferno packed an incendiary burn that went well beyond its name.“Our Mad Dog Inferno Reserve 1999 is the first hot sauce in the world to add Habanero Chile Extract. So it deserves ‘reserve’ status,” said Ashley. “We have plans to use the extract in other products down the road. But we believed it fitting to debut Habanero Chile Extract by adding it to an established product that had rightfully earned a special place in the hearts and minds of chile-lovers. This is a very special and a wonderful way to debut something that may revolutionize the hot sauce category.”
Answering the question, “Just how hot can you go?”  the Scoville rating for the Mad Dog Inferno Reserve 1999 Limited Edition, the latest and now the hottest sauce by fiery leaps and bounds, registered a mind-blowing 150,000 Scoville at Chromtec Laboratory.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hell in a Bottle]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/hell-in-a-bottle</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[mad dog inferno rating, mad dog inferno scoville rating, tabasco brand pepper sauce]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 07 Oct 1998 17:02:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/hell-in-a-bottle-827976.jpg?v=1587647991</sr:image><description><![CDATA[The Hartford Courant, October 7, 1998
Hell in a Bottle
Don’t let them think stress has scrambled your brains if you put something like Mad Dog Green Amigo Hot Sauce on the dinner table.
Or if you feel like sprinkling a few drops of Ring of Fire in the marinade for tonight’s chicken, tell them you haven’t lost your mind.
And if bottles of Mad Dog Inferno, Tibetan Fire Sauce or Pure Hell are among your mealtime condiments, they needn’t think you’re fried.
You just know that hot sauces can be the cook’s little secret for cooling off.
Their capsaicinoids -- natural substances that produce the burning sensation across your tongue -- also can make you perspire.  And that’s the body’s natural air conditioning system.
It’s probably no wonder Christopher Columbus, upon landing in the Caribbean islands, grew enchanted with chili peppers.  Feasting on native foods, such as meats preserved with chili pepper juices, he no doubts was delighted with the tang and bite of pepper. Columbus helped spread peppers throughout Europe, but it has been today’s chili heads, as they call themselves, who’ve helped spread the word about hot sauces.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[LA Times: Hot Stuff]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/la-times-hot-stuff</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[LA Times sauce review, mad dog infeno vs. blair’s death sauce, Mad Dog Inferno]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 31 Aug 1998 17:03:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/la-times-hot-stuff-171345.jpg?v=1587651390</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Hot Stuff
LA Times 1998
Light My Fire carries 200 fire-breathing sauces and salsas and, according to manager Young Min, plans to stock at least 500 more.  If you think you can take the heat, Min recommends “Dave’s Insanity”--a perfect 10 on the hotness scale (Tabasco gets only a 5).  The label on the bottle advises using one drop at a time, and Min cautions against getting any on your hands.  Other choices with E.R.'s potential are “Blair’s Death Sauce,” “Mad Dog Inferno” and “Ass in the Tub Hot Sauce.”  Incidentally, “Hot Sauce from Hell” isn’t so hot.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[LA Times: Objective Chiles]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/la-times-objective-chiles</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[evaluate chile hotness, mad dog inferno scoville rating, scoville units]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill Moore]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 31 Aug 1998 04:00:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image></sr:image><description><![CDATA[
Objective Chiles
LA Times 1998
Every hot sauce claims astronomical “Scoville units,” referring to an old-fashioned and somewhat subjective system of evaluating chile hotness.  Now the hot sauce catalog company Mo Hotta Mo Betta is taking the issue out of the speculative realm.  It has submitted all its hot sauces to a laboratory for High-Performance Liquid Chromatography analysis.
The lab used by the San Luis Obispo-based mail-order company rates Tabasco at 2,140 Scoville units, El Yucateco Habanero (green) at 8,910, Dave’s Insanity Sauce at 51,000 and the infamous Mad Dog Inferno at 89,500.  A dry mixture of ground peppers comes in at 180,000, which must be pretty close to the natural limit.
True chile loons will just have to try Mad Dog Inferno and its like.  But, for the record, the numerical ratings are accompanied in Mo Hotta Mo Betta’s catalog by a “thermometer” scale, which doesn’t bother to distinguish among levels over 5,000 units.  Above that level, hotness is not so much culinary as, let’s say, recreational.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hot Fun in the Summertime]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/hot-fun-in-the-summertime</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[Mad Dog Inferno, the improper bostonian sauce review, the world’s hottest sauce]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 12 Aug 1998 17:05:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/hot-fun-in-the-summertime-364226.jpg?v=1587649568</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Improper Bostonian, August 12, 1998
Want to know what hot is?  Hot is cracking open a bottle of Ashley Food’s Mad Dog Inferno hot sauce and taking a brave yet stupid swig of the omnipotent, uber-Caliente condiment.  Hot is also feeling the pain and suffering throughout your mouth, tongue, throat and eventually your whole body as the liquid fire rushes through your veins and boils your blood.
If you want to experience this pain, try a bottle of Mad Dog Inferno--which recently garnered the title of “The World’s Hottest Sauce” by beating out more than 100 self-proclaimed mouth-igniting sauces.  “For years everybody has been claiming to have the world’s hottest sauce and they finally put it to the test sand I doubled the next hottest sauce,” notes Ashley Food’s head honcho, David Ashley, from his Dedham office.
Perhaps the major difference between Mad Dog Inferno and the competition isn’t the heat--it’s the flavor.  “I actually wanted to make a sauce that was not only hot but had some flavor also…that’s why I used something like molasses and two kinds of cloves,” says Ashley.  Maybe it’s Ashley’s fine-tuned palate because we only tasted one thing--fire.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mad Dog Inferno Heats Up Scoville Scale]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/mad-dog-inferno-heats-up-scoville-scale-1</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[Mad Dog Inferno, scoville heat scale]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 02 Aug 1998 17:06:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/mad-dog-inferno-heats-up-scoville-scale-171323.jpg?v=1587650096</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Just in…
At Ashley Food Company:  Fancy food distributor David Ashley of Dedham, Mass., claims his Mad Dog Inferno is the hottest bottled sauce in the world.  An independent test shows Mad Dog measured more than 112,000 points on the Scoville heat scale, he says, while the hottest habanero sauce rated just under 12,000 points.  In addition to being dangerously hot, Mr. Ashley says his complex sauce begins with a sweet, unsulphured molasses base, with red wine vinegar, two kinds of cloves and “the very best” Caribbean spices.  (We’re afraid to even open the bottle, so we’ll take his word for it.) $4.99 to $6.75 per 5-ounces.  Order Mad Dog Inferno by calling (800) 617-2823, or from the Mo-Hotta-Mo-Betta catalog: (800) 462-3220.
Cincinnati Enquirer Sunday, August 2, 1998]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hot dog! - Local ‘Mad Dog Inferno’ is the hottest sauce]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/hot-dog-local-mad-dog-inferno-is-the-hottest-sauce</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 28 Jul 1998 17:08:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/hot-dog-local-mad-dog-inferno-is-the-hottest-sauce-383170.jpg?v=1587650193</sr:image><description><![CDATA[The Tab, July 28-August 3, 1998
Hot dog!
Local ‘Mad Dog Inferno’ is the hottest sauce
The question of “Which hot sauce delivers the most heat?” has been a source of fiery debate among the chili-heads for years.  Well, now you can scuttle all those subjective opinions.  In a recent scientific comparison of more than 100 self-proclaimed mouth-sizzling sauces, Massachusetts’s Mad Dog Inferno, produced by Ashley Foods in Dedham, blistered the competition into submission to rightfully earn the title of “The World’s Hottest Sauce.”
“Ever since I made my first batch, I always knew my Mad Dog Inferno was a scorcher of a hot sauce,” says David Ashley.  The do-everything of Ashley Foods, David Ashley has been producing a line of all-natural sauces and marinades for eight years, and he says he’s long been eager to prove that no product was hotter than Mad Dog Inferno.
The ‘hotter than’ market of hot sauces is growing by leaps and bounds every year,” says Ashley.  “Of course a lot of them are very hot, but I never found one that could blow away my Mad Dog Inferno.”
Spurred by the folks at the “Mo Hotta, Mo Betta” catalog, Marlin Bensinger of Chromtec Laboratory in West Palm Beach, Fla., tested more than 100 sauces.  While there were many with catchy names like “Devil Sauce,” “Volcano Sauce” and “Burnin’ Sauce,” Mad Dog Inferno hit the highest reading using high-pressure liquid chromatography, an instrumental test to measure pepper heat in percent of capsaicinoids per million: 89,560, almost 6,000 units hotter than Mad Dog’s nearest competitor.
Ashley is quick to point out that Mad Dog Inferno “is more than just bottled heat.  We use sweet, unsulphured molasses, top-quality red wine vinegar, two kinds of imported cloves and the very best Caribbean spices and hot peppers to make ‘Inferno.’ I’d call it savory heat.”With a legal warning on the bottle, Ashley recommends “a dose of one scant drop or less.  It’s really hot.”
But lest you think the boss of Boston sauces rides only on a fiery one-way street, his line includes a beguiling cilantro-rich “Green Amigo,” which can add a tangy zip to dishes like grilled shrimp, a ginger-laden teriyaki dubbed “Samurai Sauce,” three levels (mild to hot) of barbecue sauce and his newest sauce, “Mad Cat.”
“You can add a few drops [of Mad Cat] into stir-fries, mix it with black beans and dab it on chicken wings to turn them from Buffalo-style to Belize-style.  And if you like tequila,” adds Ashley, “put a drop between your thumb and forefinger and lick it as you would salt.”
A wide range of Mad Dog sauces and marinades can be found in The Wild Harvest section at many Star Markets, Le Saucier in Faneuil Hall, Martignetti’s in Brighton and the Bread and Circus in Brighton; to order by mail, call 1-800-61-SAUCE and check out their Web site at www.ashleyfood.com]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[It’s Official - Mad Dog Inferno Is The World’s Hottest Sauce]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/it-s-official-mad-dog-inferno-is-the-world-s-hottest-sauce</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[david ashley hottest sauce, First Hot Sauce to Be Declared the World's Hottest Sauce, Mad Dog Inferno Hot Sauce]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 1998 17:10:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/its-official-mad-dog-inferno-is-the-worlds-hottest-sauce-557413.jpg?v=1587648382</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Dedham, Mass., July 15, 1998---The question of which hot sauce delivers the most heat has been a source of fiery debate among chili-heads for years. We have a winner. In a recent scientific comparison of over 700 self-proclaimed mouth-sizzling sauces, it's official Mad Dog Inferno earned the title of “The World’s Hottest Sauce.”
"Ever since I made my first batch, I knew Mad Dog Inferno was a scorcher of a hot sauce. I have never found a hot sauce that could blow away Mad Dog Inferno," says David Ashley, President of Ashley Food Company. For eight years David Ashley has been producing a line of all-natural sauces and marinades including Mad Dog BBQ Sauce, Mad Dog Samurai Sauce, Mad Dog Liquid Fire Hot Sauce, Mad Dog Green Amigo Hot Sauce, and Mad Cat Hot Sauce.
Burnin’ background
Mad Dog Inferno is an all-natural, complex sauce that begins with a sweet, unsulphured molasses base; with red wine vinegar, two kinds of imported cloves and the very best Caribbean spices, hot peppers, and pepper extract. The result is a sauce that packs all the heat you can handle wrapped around a wider range of flavors. Quite simply, it’s more intriguing than anything you’d ever expect in a sauce that is true "The World's Hottest Sauce."
With a legal warning on the bottle, about five-seconds after you taste the recommended dose of one scant drop or less, prepare your mouth and mind for five to 20 minutes of agony that all true chili-heads fully understand and appreciate. So what are you waiting for? Join the chili-brigade and indulge in the intense and long-lasting savory eruption that comes from just a drop of Mad Dog Inferno. Because it’s so powerful, the average chili freak can get approximately 157,000 mind-blowing, fiery doses in each 5-oz. bottle.
Let’s get scientific
Today pepper heat can be measured both organoleptically (that is by taste) and instrumentally. In the latter, an instrumental test uses high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) to determine the amount of capsaicinoids in parts per million, with results reported as "percent capsaicinoid by HPLC." And after all of the sauces in the Mo Hotta, Mo Betta catalog was independently tested at Chromtec, a West Palm Beach Florida laboratory, Mad Dog came back at a super sizzling 89,560 HPLC, which is almost 6,000 units hotter than its nearest competitor. Unlike those sauces that singe in name only, Mad Dog Inferno packs an incendiary burn that just may go beyond its name.
Marlin Bensinger, the owner of Chromtec, has provided analytical lab services to the food and spice industry since 1980. He recently wrote, “The very existence of Fiery Foods Magazine is a testament to the rapidly increasing acceptance of hot sauces and salsas in the American diet. As with many new industries, the rush to meet demand is often accompanied by a lack of controls on the market products. One of these is the claim of pungency value that is used to differentiate hot sauces from each other. Terms like "Devil Sauce," "Volcano Sauce," and "Burnin' Sauce," although colorful and capable of conjuring terrific mental images, often have no accurate relationship to the pungency value when trying to compare food products.”]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Boston-Bred Sauce is Cat's Meow]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/boston-bred-sauce-is-cats-meow</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 13 May 1998 17:15:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/boston-bred-sauce-is-cats-meow-408771.jpg?v=1587650536</sr:image><description><![CDATA[Taste Trend -Boston Herald, Wednesday, May 13, 1998
A drop of Mad Cat Hot Sauce first pussyfoots across your tongue, then makes you yowl.  If you like hot sauce, the slow-building burn makes you want another bite.  And another.  The new, habanero-based sauce is a spin-off from the Dedham-based Mad Dog label.
A few drops of the pale, cilantro-flecked Mad Cat sauce are guaranteed to liven up your summer barbecues.  It is recommended as a condiment for nearly anything--Oriental or Mexican dishes, chicken, pork and seafood.  But, the cross-eyed feline on the label warns, “it is not for pussycats!”
The Mad Cat mastermind is David Ashley, who concocted the original Mad Dog BBQ Sauce at his home in 1985.  The sauce proved so popular with his friends that he started the Ashley Food Company.
In 1995, Cook’s Illustrated rated it the best of 11 barbecue sauces.  Now, Mad Dog comes in many breeds--from teriyaki Samurai Sauce to the tongue-scorching Inferno.
 ]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Cook's Illustrated Names Mad Dog Original BBQ Sauce "Best In America"]]></title><link>https://maddog357.com/blogs/press-for-ashley-food-co/cooks-illustrated-names-mad-dog-original-bbq-sauce-best-in-america</link><category><![CDATA[Press for Ashley Food Co.]]></category><sr:tags><![CDATA[Best BBQ sauce in America, Cook’s Illustrated, Mad Dog BBQ Sauce]]></sr:tags><dc:creator><![CDATA[David Ashley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 27 Aug 1995 17:15:00 +0000</pubDate><sr:image>https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0363/5131/1916/articles/cooks-illustrated-names-mad-dog-original-bbq-sauce-best-in-america-800807.jpg?v=1587650895</sr:image><description><![CDATA[
Highly RecommendedMad Dog (Best Sauce), $5.99 for nineteen ounces. Mad Dog, made in Boston, was the strong overall winner of the tasting. It is a thick, dark brown, and spicy sauce, with a “strong flavor of tomato paste.” Mad Dog was the only sauce that scored in the top three in both the raw and cooked tests. Raw, our tasters liked its heat combined with its sweetness--“fruity fig beginning, with a long spicy aftertaste.” This is a complicated sauce, with tamari, molasses, and liquid smoke among its ingredients, and it retained its powerful flavors after cooking.Tasting Barbecue Sauces 
 
Designer sauces come out on top in a dual taste test, while sauces heavy in starch and corn syrup bring up the rear.
By Douglas Bellow
Take a look at just about any refrigerator in America, and you will find some type of barbecue sauce.  Although this uniquely American concoction started out years go as a component of traditional barbecuing, it has evolved over the years into a kind of all-purpose summertime condiment for grilled meat and fowl. This metamorphosis has come about largely because most of us do not have the time or the facilities to cook true barbecue.  In this time-honored process, fairly large cuts of meat are first flavored with a dry rub or marinade, then hot-smoked at very low temperatures in a drum or pit for eight to twelve hours with occasional basting of a second sauce, and finally served with a finishing sauce.
These days, instead of barbecuing, we are far more likely to grill meat quickly.  Most of us don’t make our own sauces either.  Instead, we purchase bottled barbecue sauce off the shelf--and then ask it to accomplish all of the steps of traditional barbecue at once.  We throw the meat into it to marinate, cook the meat in it, and serve the meat in more of it.  This is often why store-bought sauces contain liquid smoke.  They hope to substitute for long hours of smoking using concentrated smoky flavor. The liquid smoke also lets us get a sort of barbecue taste on oven-baked foods, although there is really no substitute for live fire. (See “Secrets of Liquid Smoke,” at right.)
It is important to keep in mind that store-bought barbecue sauce is based on what barbecue veterans define as a “finishing sauce,” painted onto the barbecued meat after it comes off the heat.  This is quite different from the basting sauce, which is made from a thin liquid to keep the meat moist during the long cooking.  The basting sauces used in the traditional process never contain either sugar or tomato because these two ingredients tend to burn easily, leaving a bitter, charred taste.
For the same reason, you should not use store-bought sauces as a marinade, because then the sauce will burn when the meat is on the heat.  Instead, brush purchased sauce onto your meat during the last few minutes that it is on the grill.  Let it heat and cook a little bit, but be careful not to let it burn.  Pass more of the sauce for dipping during the meal, if you want.  If you want to marinate your meat, use vinegar, oil, and spices instead.
So, now that we know the best way to use store-bought barbecue sauce, which is the one to buy?
To determine that, we held a blind tasting of a range of store-bought sauces.  Given that there are many completely different styles among hundreds of different sauces manufactured in this country, the most difficult question that faced us in creating this tasting was which sauces to include.
As a start, we decided to limit the tasting to the tomato-based sauces, since they are far and away from the most popular, and represent what most Americans picture when they think “barbecue sauce.”  Of course, we still had to narrow the field dramatically.  We started with six of the top-selling brands available in supermarkets throughout the country.  We then ordered another five representative tomato-based sauces from different parts of the country.  Smaller, regional favorites seemed appropriate contestants due to the strong local nature of barbecue itself.  While these particular regional sauces came highly recommended by various sources, it is best to view them as representative of a very large number of possible choices.  Not only are there other great tomato-based sauces out there, but whole other categories of sauce to try.  We simply had to limit ourselves.
The sauces were tasted blind in two different ways.  First, we tasted them just as they come out of the bottle.  Second, we grilled chicken breasts, basting them in generous amounts of sauce for the final few minutes on the grill, allowing the sauces to caramelize but not burn or char.  Since there is no orthodox set of guidelines about what barbecue sauce should be, tasters were asked to describe the sauces carefully and try to define the aspects of the sauces that they found most and least appealing.
Tasters Reject Starch and Corn SyrupWhile there was general agreement between the two tastings, they were not equally definitive.  The raw tasting produced a very clear ranking of likes and dislikes.  When it came to tasting the sauces cooked on chicken, however, tasters found the differences to be less pronounced.
This does not dilute the fact that there are definitely large differences between sauces.  When tasting sauces alone, our tasters tended to choose the most expensive products, which also tend to be the spiciest ones with the strongest flavors.  The three top choices have three very distinct flavors, coming, in fact, from three very different barbecue traditions, but are similar in that none of them is sweet, smoky, or ketchupy, and that all are manufactured by smaller, local sauce companies.
In the cooked test, preferences were still clear, but not by as large a margin.  The sweeter, thicker, and often less expensive sauces tended to fare better than they had when tasted raw.  Tasters agreed that this was largely due to the fact that the thicker sauces tended to adhere better to the chicken, so their tastes came through better than some of the pricier, thinner sauces.
When we checked the ingredients of the individual sauces, we found that two substances, corn syrup and starch, were consistently associated with low ratings.  Of all the sauces tasted, only three list “food starch” among the primary ingredients.  These same sauces were also the only ones that list corn syrup as their number one ingredient.]]></description></item>		
         
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