Swamp Dragon Liquor Hot Sauce Aims to Slay More Taste Buds, Expand Reach

The owner of Swamp Dragon, the world’s only liquor hot sauce, is raising funds to grow the brand, which is sold online and in more than 1,000 retail stores nationwide.

“I am now raising capital in earnest to prosecute a major scale-up for Swamp Dragon,” CEO Matt Beeson wrote on his LinkedIn page. “Now that the pandemic problems are easing, opportunities that were on hold are returning, and we need investors in order to exploit those opportunities. And it’s a lot.

“If you don’t know, we make the world’s only liquor hot sauce. Bourbon is better than vinegar! We are ultimately differentiated in the market, and the product is attractive to professional buyers,” he wrote.

Beeson is aiming for a six or seven-figure haul, saying the company has “an incredible foundation laid and enormous mass market opportunities (too many, really).”

Other shelf-stable hot sauces rely on an acetic acid (vinegar) as a preservative. Beeson, a hot sauce lover in Baton Rouge, La., didn’t like the overpowering sour taste and aroma of vinegar.

After two years of research, Beeson found that no other hot sauces are based in liquor. Many are infused or flavored with liquor, but none of them contain alcohol (not enough to get drunk and it’s safe for kids). Swamp Dragon is hot sauce reimagined.

Read more in the January issue of Gourmet News. Subscribe now so you don’t miss it!