Talk about pressure that we never had.
Naughty dog hot sauce was born during the pandemic in 2020
and creator Elliott Franklin of Madison found inspiration on
Netflix and YouTube where everyone seemed to be inventing
themselves. And then Elliott made a batch of hot sauce and actually
wrote down the recipe, creating something he could call his
own. And name it after his dog Romeo in the studio with us
right now is Elliott Franklin creator of Naughty dog sauce.
Elliott, welcome to Maxine Radio.
Well, thanks for having me guys. Yeah, great to meet you.
And Naughty dog is in the building.
And you got your Wisconsin shirt on on Wisconsin?
Yeah, I had to represent it today.
Yes. But we're raising Wisconsin just, you know,
three generations deep. So yeah, just did you,
did you watch the game today or what? Listen to I did watch
the game. Yeah. Yeah, I thought they were pretty
formidable, but yeah, just they should have beat a better
than they should have. Yeah, but it's Wisconsin. I grew up
during the Don Morton era. So you said those were rough days.
Ha ha. Roughly. Yeah. Like your dog. Yeah, these kids are
spoiled. Genetics. No, I went through. Oh,
okay, I was making a joke about rough rough. Let's talk about
your dog Romeo. Yeah, he brought a photo of his dog Romeo so
that we are all inspired. I will take a photo and share it
with everyone. Oh my gosh, Romeo is adorable. Look at that face.
He's so cute. What does Romeo do? That's Naughty.
Well, Romeo was my dog. Just yeah, he crossed the rainbow,
brazed about like four or five years ago. Yeah, so he lived
to be 14 years old. You know, he was spoiled the whole time.
So when we got him, he was six months old.
And so he was just wild, you know.
So I asked my friends that were dog owners and I'm like,
when is this dog going to slow it out? I'm like, oh, yeah, when he's going to be
doing, I'm like, well, he's like 10 years old now. Just yeah,
he's not chilling out. You know, so I just always called him Naughty Dog.
He was a world's oldest puppy. So yeah, yeah. Great story.
I like that a lot. What breed? I know Jimmy Kay just came in and said what it is.
Well, he was a French bulldog. He parked French in part, old English. So yeah,
he's just those ears. Yeah, those ears. I love Frenchy ears.
Joey B. Banks has a Frenchy named Eddie. I love Joey B.
I love Eddie. And Joey. It's a love fest here. I'm actually great. Oh, boy,
Elliott, you know, we'll hear about your hot sauce in a moment. But who is Elliott Franklin?
Well, like, what is your backstory? So Elliott, Frank, they grew up on the Northside of Madison,
you know, 1701 Browning Road, just on the corner of Sherman and North Board. If you ever go
through that intersection, you see a big gray house, big gray garage. That's a house I grew up in.
Yeah. So I'm born and raised in Wisconsin. Yeah, my mother is from Wisconsin. My grandmother,
you know, migrated to Wisconsin. So we're like three generations deep, like back to the 30s.
You're stuck. Yeah. Yeah. Where can I go? Yeah. So everybody asked like, what are you doing here?
I'm like, well, I was born here as I might as well die here. You know, so
that's more of it. You're a lifer. Yeah. So you're in the same house on the Northside there,
then? I am not. No. I live in the prairie now. But I mean, I do the Northside Farmers Market,
which is like right in the shadow of the house, you know, the house that I grew up in. So it's nice
to do that market because I used to raise hell in that parking lot. You know, we're praying
anyway. It was in Colesville. Yeah. I go back. Yeah. There was something else there before that.
My sister, if I could call her, she would be able to, you know, enlighten me on that. But,
yeah, there's a lot of history in that whole neighborhood. So that's where Rocket I met.
And the Northside Farmers Market is like deep in my heart, you know, because it's like
where I grew up at. You know, so I can't not do that farmers market. So that's where Naughty Dog is
going to be found. And, you know, so, uh, yeah, if you need it, Northside Farmers Market,
830 to 1230 Sundays to the summer, I just, I don't know what the timeframe is. That's okay.
People can look for you. You know, yeah. Exactly. I tell us a little bit about how you started it.
And I think this is really funny because it's Naughty Dog, not like Naughty, like usual,
but you spell it NaWTY. I have no idea where that came from. I just like, I never felt like I was,
you know, like a, like a branding, you know, with different person. So I just, you know,
so when I came up with the hot sauce, um, it was kind of one of those things like I,
but always make hot sauce. It was kind of like a bloody married to me. Just, you know, I just
make it myself, you know, just throw things in a blender and whatever. And so, you know, during
pandemic, I was bored and I found a bottle of hot sauce in my fridge and I pulled it out and I tried
it and I really liked it, but I had no idea how I made it. So I'm like, I want to make a recipe
that I want to be able to pass down to generations. So I made her hot sauce, made her recipe,
took it into my friends, like after the world kind of opened up a little bit. Yeah. And they loved
it. And I'm like, just have this. And they're like, well, we want to pay you for it. I'm like,
there's just have it. It's just for me to you, you know, whatever. And I'm like, I just, at that
point, I just figured out that I had a runner base. Yeah. Yeah. So people that wanted to buy it.
So I'm like, well, just, I'll make a legitimate, you know, wouldn't got an LLC when there's some
classes, went to a friend of food class to the UW and, you know, the rest of this history. So
welcome to North York hot sauce. Congratulations. Yeah. Yeah.
Appreciate you. Now, one of the topics I saw you wanted to talk about was African Americans
in small business. And recently was, well, go ahead and talk about that topic first.
Okay. So I just saw that they had the African American or the black of restaurant week.
Yes. And I saw a story that they said that, you know, 0.4% of African American businesses in
Dane County are owned by African Americans. That's a, like, it's marginal. So I feel like there's
hole in the market, you know, for us African Americans. So just let's fill the void. You know, so
for every African American that's all you're listening to me right now, I like, let's
build something, you know, let's build a brand, you know, just, uh, yeah, there's opportunity
out there. Um, I started this from scratch. I learned a lot of this from YouTube and TikTok and
whatever else I could find it, whatever resources I could find. And, uh, I just basically just,
you know, did this from scratch. But if you reach out to the resources that are available for small
markets or for a small business, um, they're willing to help. That's every business in America,
every business in the world started small. Right. So you can use the resources that are available
to you and build something, you know, and let's, you know, do you feel like you're proof you can do
it too? I think so. I just, I totally do. Uh, just, you know, I'm just, I'm not a success story,
but I'm just, you know, of, of, I don't know, in example, yeah, you know, of that, you know,
you can do this. I mean, you know, a lot of people want to have a small business, but they're
afraid to do it. But the resources out there are phenomenal in Wisconsin. There's the small
business hub on South Park Street. This is the best brand new here in Madison and has already made
an impact on our community here too. Absolutely. And be it, be coming in entrepreneur. We all
going to test this in his room. Yeah. One of the best decisions you can have. You know,
you know, and capitalism is kind of designed for small businesses. You know, I mean, you know,
not to, you know, put a dark, what blanket on the whole situation, but, you know, you, there's
some, some guardrails to it, like just some, some safety nets. So just go out and take a chance,
you know, I mean, do something small. I mean, you don't have to put a big investment into it. I mean,
I'm like, my hot sauce. I mean, that's pretty minimal. Like to get it up and going. I mean,
just find something that you are passionate about and put some money into it. Not a whole lot of
money. You don't need a lot of money. I mean, a lot of people think like small business storefront,
you know, just right. Right. Yeah. Inventory, all that stuff. Just find something that you love. And,
you know, put your heart into it and just, you know, make it go and just, you know, reach out to
the community and whatever resources you have. Well, and I love you said, you, you are selling
at the North Side Farmers Market in Madison. But then you're also online, right? And you do some
stuff on Facebook. Yeah. So you keep people updated and they can order through that as well.
I do. Like right now, I'm like in that social media space. I'm like, you know, in between the
farmers market and the retail situation. So I need to get my processors license. And I want to
send a shout out to a favor's catering. Leanne, out in Sun Prairie, she opened up a commercial
kitchen where I'm renting from. And so that's the hurdle that I have. You know, so I can have that,
you know, infrastructure in order to make my product retail available. So that's going to be huge
for me. You got to scale up, man. You got to get on the sharks and just. I've already got my
pitch on my head. Oh, that would be so exciting. You'd be cheering you on.
Elliott Franklin from a naughty dog sauce. Let's talk about the sauce. I'm excited to hear
about the sauce. I actually want to taste the sauce. Did you bring some stuff in?
I did. Yeah. Yeah. What sauces do you have right now with us? And what can you tell us about
that sauce? So I have the original liberator liberal. Wow. He's overdosing. He's excited.
He's overdosing. I'm in darkness right now. And like shots of hot sauce on the way down.
Right. Oh, it's Caribbean liberation. Okay. So the Caribbean liberation is like my
all-time bestseller. I say that Caribbean liberation is kind of like what spot it is to new glarest.
Okay. Yeah. That's what it is. All right. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's got jerk pineapple,
apple cider vinegar, just yeah, it's it's a whole vibe. It's got on a scale like one to ten,
ten being blazing hot, one being pretty mellow. Where would that one fall on? I'd say about a six.
I'm trying to do. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a little more than a mid-level heat. I got the original
bliss. Yeah. Yeah. So that's like your every day, every way sauce. It's kind of like Frank's Red
Hot without as much vinegar in it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So yeah. The thing about hot sauces
sometimes is they're they're they're good, but sometimes the vinegar is overpowering.
It is. That's what we don't do. No, no, no. Yeah. So he's got honey,
sriracha. Yeah. That's awesome. This is a wild story about that. Yeah. So anyhow, I originally
started that recipe. I was going to do a collaboration with the killer bees since I'm prairie,
the minor league hockey team. And I needed a hot sauce. They wanted me to come in and sell
some hot sauce. And I said, I don't have a hot sauce with honey in it. So I made a bottle of
sriracha and it calls for white sugar, like just by nature. And so my wife was like, well,
why don't you just substitute the honey or the sugar, the white sugar with honey? Sure. Yeah.
Make it, you know, it's going to be that it was going to be called the killer bees hot,
high-stick hot honey sauce is what we called it. Yeah. So anyhow, they ended up canceling their season
for whatever reason. Oh, no. Yeah. So I had a pivot. I had a pivot. Yep. So yeah. So since I'd
live in some prairie, so that's called the prairie pollinator, you know, sriracha. It's a prairie
pollinator, not that area. Exactly. What's that green one that I see? What kind what does that
is? Like a green with envy. Green with envy. Yeah. Yeah. They're great. Me. Yeah. I don't know
where that came from. It just like just needed to call something something quick. And they just
spit it out. What's in the, is it like a green pepper? Yeah. So that's going to be a tomatio sauce.
That I like. How do you know? Serrano, white vinegar, lots of garlic. I don't even measure the garlic.
I could never have too much, right? You know, you could never have too much. Now at the
Northside farmers, right? You were kind of telling me how really this is naughty dog sauce,
not naughty dog hot sauce. Yeah. And really Jimmy, a lot of the sauces aren't that hot. They're
very tasty. You have a couple hot ones for those hot people. Sure. But you don't focus on that.
That's not what you're really out to do. No, I don't. I don't make anything that's insanely hot.
I mean, I just let like Dave's insanity do the hot hot sauce. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I probably
have a bottle of Dave's insanity at my cover, but I just like, you know, I just, I'll let him
quarter that part of the market. There you go. I just, I focus on flavor. I want to ask you one
question though. And I would call this a secret special ingredient. When I was reading about you
last night, you have pineapple in one of your sauces. How does that work in a hot sauce? Sweet.
I have to credit my wife Jenny Franklin for that. Okay. Like so the Caribbean liberation. I
went like, because I had that, that was one of the original five. And I wanted to bring it back out
for a front of mine, Troy Gile. And so he called me up and he's like, I want the Caribbean. I'm like,
why quit making that? But I'm going to, that's my guy. So I'll do it for him. But I'm going to make
it better than it was then. Wow. So I made a batch of it. And it was just missing something.
I just was throwing everything in it. And so my wife was like, running errands. I call her up.
I'm like, it's just missing something. She put pineapple in it. Oh, I'm like, perfect. Done.
Perfect. So it's just like Picasso, like, you know, just, you know, just just drop the
brush, just watch you paint your hot sauce into existence. That was the only hot sauce I'd
have that was kind of a castle ish. Yeah. But everything else is pretty, you know, Louis
Deanna base, you know, home style, you know, whatever. And labeling and everything is just a door.
It's awesome. Elliot is great to meet you. We're out of time. We got about 30 seconds here
before we got to get off into the song. Thank you for coming in. If people want to get a hold of
you, get the hot sauce. How do we do that? Oh, you can meet me at, at, um, uh,
Naughty Dog, um, Instagram, Facebook or, uh, uh, uh, E Franklin at Naughty Dog dot com.
Naughty Dog dot com. Spell that in a WT Y. My man. Yeah. Yes.
Elliot is great to meet you. Oh, yeah. Thanks for your hot sauce with us. And we'll see
at the Northside farmer's market. I hope. Thank you.
Here's a people brothers band. We got a double dip and an interview with Big, Big Furnace
this magazine on Saturday night. Can I just read about the hot sauce one more time?
Please do. It was so good. The green with envy from Naughty Dog is probably one of the best hot sauce
I have ever tasted the tomatillo. It's not that it's hot, but the flavor and the garlic. That's
what I loved in it. Yeah. Yeah. And, and we're eating it just, you know, simple with some chips.
And that's all you need. Wow. Is that good? Thanks to Naughty Dog for coming in.
I am hot sauce truck. I am too. I'm in love. Absolutely.