About Us
A passion for flavor
Dee Roo Hot Sauce was founded in 2005. We were growing our hot peppers in pots on a little balcony outside our tiny apartment on the northside of Chicago and making sauces with them in our spare time. A passion for all things spicy and saucy was born, and over the next several years our very first hot sauce recipes were perfected and subsequently shared out to our friends and family. Word of mouth started getting around and pretty soon requests for our sauces started coming in, It was then that we began to consider opening a small business producing hot sauces, spice and powder blends and many of the other products we were interested in making.
Our first farmer’s market booth debuted in 2010, and we continued to sell at farmer’s markets and small independent retail stores over the next several years. Shortly after that we moved into our first house and turned a good portion of our back yard into a pepper farm! Today we grow about three quarters of all the ingredients used in our sauces; the various peppers, the onions, the garlic and many of the berries and fruits that help balance the flavor profiles in some of the sauces.
Our mission is to make the very best hot sauces you can find, with flavor profiles that are not available in the larger commercial markets. Dee Roo sauces do not contain any preservatives or gums or fillers – only 100% natural whole foods go into the bottles. While we love heat, our official motto is Flavor First, Heat Second for a good reason. Heat for heat’s sake is nothing without flavor, so we strive to produce the most flavorful and well balanced hot sauces you can find.
We currently have 6 sauces in regular rotation year round, and then during the summer and fall we use many of the 30-40 different types of peppers that we grow each year to make smaller test batches that are only available for limited times. Test batches will be remade when time and ingredients allow, while some other batches we’ll have only enough ingredients for one batch. All of our sauces are made with usage in mind, and they compliment any and all manner of food. From pizza to burgers to seafood to soups to lamb chops and steaks we have sauces that will add that perfect amount of zing.
Our passion and vision to make small batch artisan hot sauces continues to drive us today, and was the motivation to start this website and grow our small business. We’re proud to share the fruits of our labor, sharing our love with you and everyone in your corner of the world. Thanks very much for visiting the Dee Roo Flavor Emporium!