About D and D

Icepic ( A dream to a company)

My story starts off like most people, waking up from a good dream. While I was beating my head against the wall trying to go back to sleep I thought about how much I hated store bought hot sauce. I wanted a hot sauce that had a good flavor without tasting like heat and vinegar. I know what your thinking, yeah right, you woke up and thought about hot sauce, well it is true, the TV was on and that other hot sauce commercial with the bug exploding was playing. I finally got back to sleep an hour later and the dream floated into the sunset for 6 years.

While I was dating my now wife Dawn, Her and I were eating dinner and reached for a bottle of hot sauce at a restaurant and I told her about my dream. She told me I should try to develop my own brand of sauce. She would nag me for years, every now and then through the years. We got married and went on our honeymoon and with time on our hand, the subject again came up about my hot sauce dream. It was finally going to be time to make our move until a setback occurred, the death of my father Ron Kirchinger. While sorting out the detail we were given a gift a small loan to get out company started. On March 5th 2005 I decided to take my wife’s advice and finally get off my butt and create a sauce. I gather all the ingredients together and began mixing. 2 hours later and a lot of trips to the garbage disposal we had a recipe.

My wife, the guinea pig took a taste and may some recommendation on changing the taste. Finally after a lot of testing and sore stomachs from chips and samples we had the recipe Icepic Mild to Wild Peach sauce was born. Now the finally thing, Does anyone else like it? I work for Tires Plus as a Service Manager, I took it to work where most of the guys like hot things. They loved it, I could believe that we could be onto something. We had friends in the restaurant business, it was time for them to take a taste and give a professional opinion. They took a few samples and said to us, I think you got something here. We bolted out the door and started planning. We heard of a Hot Sauce show in Clearwater, Beckett Lake Nursery annual Hot Sauce show where they offered an amateur hot sauce judging contest. What a perfect way to get real results of our creation. After professional results we walked away without an award but ended up 2nd place in the Peoples choice category. We also scored a 57 out of 59 from Tahiti Joe (http://www.tahitijoeshotsauces.com/) during professional judging. We were so proud it was like a new born saying Momma or Daddy for the first time. We rushed home and decided to go for broke and start a company.

My wife told me to come up with a name, D and D (Dave and Dawn) Fire Sauce started on 04/20/2005. We had product but no customers. A Friend of ours was a performer at the Renaissance festival as a Fire Eater/Comedian Johnny Phoenix. Johnny was thinking of adding merchandising to his show. What a perfect match, Fire eating and Fire Sauce. It was like a match made in heaven. We couldn’t produce sauce fast enough for the requests. Day and night in between our jobs we lived and made hot sauce. At the end of 2005 we sold over 60 cases to Johnny Phoenix. Without him believing in our product, we never though we would have a customer requesting our sauce. It was nice to go to the Tampa Ren Fest we met people who loved the sauce. We located a bottle locally that could make our sauce on a large volume.

Fast forward to March 24, 2006. Our friends at Peg’s Pizza and Cantina in Gulfport opened their restaurant and help us release our product. It was a great time. I was hoping to sell a few bottles but we actually sold 60 bottles which doesn’t seem like a lot but to us it was incredible. Our heart was pumping we had a good thing. A few months later it was time again for Beckett Lake Nursery what a great chance to go from 2nd place Peoples Choice winners to Professional vendors. We were welcomed by other vendors with open arms and met a lot of nice people like Tahiti Joe, who really gave us a lot of helpful ideas He said were all friends here not competition. It was a great show; we learned a lot from people, had a fun time and even sold 200 bottles.

We hope we had a chance to educate you and give you a little incite into our history. From my family Dawn, Brittany and Autumn and I, we hope you continue to enjoy our product and help us put our kids through college.

P.S. And if you find yourself in need of someone to build website please contact my webmaster Dennis Young on Contacts page.