A good sauce is icing on the cake

One of the things I love about our resort towns is the entrepreneurs who defy the odds in order to bring us their unique takes on specialty foods. Jams, jellies, artisanal breads, small-batch alcoholic indulgences, spices, meats, rum, cheeses, pickles, coffees … just to name a few. I crow every weekend on the airwaves about being “live and local,” and so many of our brave businesspeople couldn’t be much more live and local.

Delaware’s producers generally make smaller amounts of a product – a style known as “craft.” Craft industries underline hometown enthusiasm along with uncommon flavors and techniques. That enthusiasm is alive and well just down the road in Seaford, where Rehoboth Beach native Rick Ewing and his daughter Cassie produce Delaware Sauce Company’s craft hot sauces. Though we can still call him local, his Eaglewingz-brand sauces are consumed all over the place, including Kansas City, Ohio, Baltimore, Miami, Annapolis, Philadelphia and even the British Virgin Islands.

Rick dabbled in the food industry as a diversion from the successful construction business he shares with his son Taylor. Rick’s still known for his late-1980s nocturnal hot dog cart out on the deck at the Rusty Rudder, where he did a brisk business keeping customers nourished until 1 a.m. Around 2010, he teamed up with Cassie – who was 10 years old at the time – to continue making the distinctive condiments. They did everything together, from mixing to ordering supplies, bottling and labeling, and eventually gave birth to the first Chesapeake Hot Sauce brand. Fast-forward to the present, and their Eaglewingz private-label sauces can be found in well over 50 restaurants just around Delmarva.

Early on, Rick sought the advice of our very own chilihead Chip Hearn. That encouragement helped create Rick’s Pineapple Teriyaki Sauce, which earned a first-place Screaming Mi Mi Award at the 2017 New York City Hot Sauce Expo. If you’ve dined in any coastal eateries, you’ve probably drizzled Rick and Cassie’s sauces on your favorite dish. Most notable are the custom-labeled table sauces at Fins, Big Oyster Brewery, JD Shuckers, Woody’s Dewey Beach Bar & Grill, Zogg’s, SoDel Concepts, Dos Locos, the Hooked restaurant group, Ocean City’s Bad Monkey, Mother’s Cantina and Crabcake Factory – just to name a few. You can purchase the full line of flavors at Odysea in downtown Rehoboth Beach.

Every Eaglewingz sauce has a story, and one of the best is the birth of SoDel Concepts’ Shuckin’ Sauce. When Rick and Cassie came up with that flavor, they held a contest to name the sauce. A hundred bucks went to the winning name: Sauce-Shank Redemption. Though that flavor ended up being privately labeled, movie fans have to admit it’s a great name.

After many requests from chiliheads such as myself, Rick came up with a sauce that has more of a burn factor than most of his restaurant-labeled sauces. Ghost of Frog Hollow was specifically developed for Jeff’s Taphouse in Bridgeville. It contains ghost peppers, habanero peppers and cayenne pepper. Interestingly enough, though it might trigger hallucinations for some of our more timid diners, it still has a delectable flavor that is not masked by the heat.

One of Delaware Sauce Company’s most popular wing sauces is the Whiskey & Molasses flavor, created using New York State blackstrap molasses and Canadian whiskey. The alcohol cooks off, leaving a softly sweet aftertaste. I mentioned that every sauce has a story: Rick and Cassie received a request to create a hot sauce specifically for a wedding being held in an apple orchard. From those spicy nuptials was born Eaglewingz Apple Bourbon Sauce, which was named the 2023 Grand World Champion of the esteemed NYC Hot Sauce Expo. Another great story involves Bacon Me Crazy, named by Rick’s niece, which is used to flavor a number of bacon-centric meat products at JD’s House of Bacon in Baltimore.

Rick tells me, “It doesn’t go out of our kitchen unless we like it.” As an equal-opportunity eater, I’ve enjoyed many Eaglewingz sauces – in fact, one of my favorites is Cayenne Cassie’s, a bright yet simple sauce with an aromatic whisper of black pepper. There are three bottles in my pantry at this very moment.

We all depend on one another in resort towns. So when buying, eating or sipping, keep our neighbors and friends in mind by doing it locally. And that includes the all-important hot sauce drizzle. After all, spice is the variety of life.