My name is Sofie Wood, and my dad created his own hot sauce. This may sound like a strange, yet simple aspect about my family, but Bootlikker Hot Sauce is far from ordinary. Starting in 2002, this sauce arose from my dad attempting to create a hot wing dipping sauce for his fellow band members to try. Unintentionally, my dad made a sauce that our close friends and family craved. Growing up my dad, Tommy, used to make the sauce in batches of twelve every few months to give as presents or sell on the side. I distinctly remember this process taking what seemed to be all night long, and the mixture of all the smells made me absolutely nauseous. Even worse, the day after making the hot sauce our house smelled potent, and I had gotten little to no sleep from the raucous chopping of ingredients. When I was younger my family knew I disliked hot sauce, but one day my brother convinced me to try the sauce with my breakfast. After the slightest taste, I was so taken aback by the intermingling of tequila and jalapeños in the sauce that I ran around my house screaming and have yet to eat eggs since. For years I wondered what people saw in this sauce, but when I got older, I loved it. The way the ingredients mix and the way the burn of the sauce is not felt until the end is magical. Fortunately, over the years Bootlikker has grown and the line now includes Bootlikker Jack - a hot sauce based on whiskey - and Bootlikker beef jerky. What once seemed to me as my dad’s strange hobby has now become an award-winning hot sauce that provides a large portion of my family’s income.