Texas Pete

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A 12 oz. bottle of Texas Pete hot sauce.

Texas Pete is a retail brand name for a Louisiana-style hot sauce in the United States manufactured by the TW Garner Food Company in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The brand is best known for its 3.0 oz bottles with their bright red sauce, shaker top, and white and yellow label featuring the name in red and "Texas Pete", a red silhouette cowboy.

1 History
2 Production
3 Heat
4 Chick-Fil-A
5 References
6 External links

[edit] History

Texas Pete was created by the Garner family, who operated "The Dixie Pig Barbecue Stand." The sauce is Carolina style BBQ sauce and planned to be called "Mexican Joe" but renamed when Samuel Garner decided it should be an American name.^[1]

[edit] Production

The cayenne peppers used in Texas Pete hot sauce are aged for two years to soften their skins, and the company claims this also enhances concentration of capsaicin. The peppers are then combined with vinegar, salt, xanthan gum, and sodium benzoate. One of the issues surrounding the sauce is the inclusion of xanthan gum, a thickener that allows for less overall pepper pulp in the recipe to achieve the desired texture, which some hot sauce fans^[who?] find distasteful.

[edit] Heat

The sauce registers approximately 1,000 on the Scoville heat scale, compared to Tabasco sauce which registers 2,500-5,000. For comparison, there are other sauces that illustrate how mild this sauce is, such as Crazy Jerry's Mustard Gas & Hot Sauce which registers 150,000 or the plethora of Blair's sauces, which range in score from 550,000 to 16,000,000.

[edit] Chick-Fil-A

In late 2003, Chick-Fil-A opted to carry Texas Pete sauce (packet-form) in its restaurants nationwide. Same-store sales catapulted over 45% in 2004. Many analysts close to the firm heralded the decision to carry the sauce, largely attributing the company's success to the sauce itself.

In several third party surveys, Chick-Fil-A customers have exclaimed, "Texas Pete doesn't go on the chicken sandwich, the chicken sandwich goes on the Texas Pete," and "Best thing since the chicken sandwich."

^[2] It is considered to be mild by hot sauce enthusiasts^[who?], but it has been suggested^[who?] that its relative mildness accounts for its widespread popularity^{[citation needed]}. The company also acknowledges this with the motto "Texas Pete Sauces are all about FLAVOR, not BURN!"