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Oct. 6, 2021

Alice Cooper on One-Year Anniversary of Hot Sauce Launch: ‘We Keep it Rock and Roll’

via Rolling Stone

A year after quietly launching a hot sauce brand, Alice Cooper is ready to heat things up and turn his pandemic pastime up a couple degrees. The rocker announced this week that his trio of hot sauces is now available for purchase nationwide on Amazon.com.

First unveiled last fall, the hot sauces are all named after famous Alice Cooper songs — “Welcome to My Nightmare” (mild), “No More Mr. Nice Guy (medium)” and “Poison” (hot). In addition to launching on Amazon, Cooper has also teamed up with the Rock & Brews restaurant chain for a “Poison Burger,” made with the “Poison” Reaper Hot Sauce. The new menu item is available at Rock & Brews restaurants across the country, and with Cooper on tour till the end of October, a rep for the brand teases that the frontman “might be seen at a Rock & Brews location having a Poison Burger himself.”

Cooper says the reaction to his hot sauce has been “really good from both Alice fans and hot sauce enthusiasts [alike],” and he’s excited to grow the business on a larger scale. The homemade hot sauce was first developed for his Alice Cooperstown restaurant in Phoenix. But when the restaurant closed in 2017 (after almost two decades in business), the rocker says he wanted to bottle up a little bit of the business with him.

“We had our own in-house hot sauces at my restaurant and people kept asking to make it available,” he tells Rolling Stone. “There are so many brands, varieties and tastes to choose from out there, but after a while we said, ‘Hey, let’s do it!’ After all, it is not only a great hot sauce, but it is also a really cool thing to own for collectors and fans.”

Cooper worked closely with his long-time manager Shep Gordon, and the singer’s team at Primary Wave Music, to perfect the recipes for the hot sauces. “I go by taste and what I like and what stands out,” he states, when asked about the final flavor profiles. It was also important, Cooper says, “to do [hot sauce] a little differently and keep it rock and roll.”

To wit: the singer has brought bottles of his hot sauces on tour with him, giving out bottles to his crew and members of the band. “Everybody on the road out here seems to love hot sauce and we can’t keep enough of our hot sauce on the bus,” he admits. “I’ve tasted a lot of different hot sauces, and ours has a very different flavor. It really makes road food a lot better.”

According to Jeff Straughn, the Chief Brand Officer at Primary Wave Music, Cooper was actively involved in the whole process. “We had professional chefs that Alice introduced us to, do the final tasting and approval of our product. Everyone loved it and we haven’t looked back. Together, with Shep and Alice,” Straughn says, “we’re in an amazing position to create a new vertical in the hot sauce space that no one has been able to do to date.”

It doesn’t seem to be hyperbole either – Straughn says the Rock & Brews partnership was supposed to be a limited-time offer, but after “selling hundreds of the Alice Cooper Poison Burger [in the] first week, it’s now moving to a permanent item on the menu.”

The Alice Cooper Hot Sauce Trio retails for $29.95 and includes three, 148ml bottles (one each of mild, medium and hot). The hot sauce is available for purchase now on Amazon.