Jefferson County teenager Drew Davis believes he has a hot future ahead of him.
The Hillsboro 17-year-old has started a business making and selling hot sauce.
Davis, who was born with cerebral palsy, has a sense of humor about his condition and named his company “Crippling Hot Sauce.”
He said he launched the business on July 13 and on that first day, he sold 100 bottles in 35 minutes.
Davis said he quickly made more sauce to meet the demand, and as of July 27, he had sold more than 500 bottles of the sauce.
He said he plans to donate 5 percent of the profits from his hot sauces sales to the National Cerebral Palsy Research Foundation.
“My whole goal with this brand is to break some of the stereotypes that able-bodied people have about disabled people and show them that we don’t feel bad about ourselves,” he said. “I just want to make sure I give back to a good cause first, because cerebral palsy is one of the most prominent disabilities in the disabled community.”
Davis said he asked many people with disabilities if they were OK with his business name.
“I express to people that there’s a lot of difference in the suffix between crippled and crippling,” he said. “You can put crippling on anything; it’s just more of an expression. Crippled (means) wheelchair bound and can be seen as offensive.”
Davis sells three kinds of sauce. The mild sauce is called “Just for the Parking,” the medium sauce is called “Limping,” and the hottest is called “Crippling Agony.”
“My hottest is your go-to for wings, my medium is for Thai (food), and my mild is sweet where you can put it on eggs,” he said.
Making the sauce
His mom, Kris Davis, helps him make the hot sauce.
“They have a really good flavor,” she said. “It’s just too hot for me.”
Davis said they make all the hot sauce in their home, following all Food and Drug Administration sanitation rules.
He also said he is trying to find a manufacturer to make the sauce.
“My mom doesn’t trust me with a knife, and rightfully so because I don’t have good dexterity at all and fingers don’t grow back,” he said.
Davis said one thing that makes his sauce stand out is it contains no preservatives.
“I’ve read multiple studies about preserving,” he said. “If you consume enough (preservatives) throughout your lifetime, it’ll decrease your life expectancy by 2 percent. If you live 100 years, you are losing two years. So much can be done in two years; that time is so valuable.”
Davis said his sauce must ferment for a week before it’s ready to be sold.
He said he found a recipe online and adapted it, making about 50 changes.
Davis said he tries to order all his produce, like the habanero peppers he uses in his sauce, and other supplies from the St. Louis area. His labels are made by Murphy the Printer in Arnold.
Business plan
Davis, who will be a senior at Hillsboro High School when classes resume this month, said his hot sauce venture evolved from a class assignment he completed in a business class last school year.
For the assignment, students were asked to create a five-page business plan, and Davis said he ended up writing a 29-page plan to start a hot sauce business.
A hot sauce lover himself, Davis said he felt the market had room for another brand, especially one without preservatives.
“I ended up doing over 1,200 hours of research in seven months,” he said.
Davis said his research focused on the hot sauce market, hot sauce recipes, preservatives and the charity he wanted to help.
Davis, who has a 3.9 GPA, said he was disappointed with the 82 percent he got on the project and decided to start up the business and prove his plan was a good one.
He said people may buy his hot sauce at Herrell’s Market, 1015 Imperial Main St., in Imperial.
Herrell’s Market owner Jeff Spradling said he likes the sauce.
“Drew came into my store and approached me about selling it and he seemed like a nice guy, and I loved the sauce,” he said. “We like to try to support the local area.”
Spradling said he tried the sauce with his lunch one day.
“It’s an awesome, awesome taste, not too overpowering either,” he said.
Spradling said he ordered about six cases and has sold about three cases.
“We will definitely be ordering it again,” he said.
Davis sells every bottle for $8 or a pack of three for $20. He said he calls a pack of all three flavors the “Triple Cripple.”
Davis’ hot sauce also is sold at Beer Sauce, 318 Mid Rivers Mall Drive, in St. Peters.
He said he is looking for more businesses to sell the hot sauce.
His hot sauce may be ordered through Facebook or Instagram by searching for “Crippling Hot Sauce.”
