Get Saucy

Holly man spices things up with new Bar-B-Q sauce line

HOLLY, Michigan — For Lynn Fowlkes, the secret’s in the sauce.

He should know. The 58-year-old Holly resident has spent the last three years developing his own line of barbecue sauce, called My Uncle’s Gourmet Bar-B-Q Sauce.

As he struggled to name the concoction, he kept thinking about all the times he heard his nieces call the sauce simply, “My uncle’s sauce.”

“I kind of woke up in a dream and said, ‘That’s what I’m going to call the sauce,’” he said.

He inherited the sweet hickory recipe, which was passed down through generations of cooks in his family.

“The cooking and the background of cooking all these years led to being an entrepreneur and creating my own sauce,” he said.

Fowlkes said the hardest part about developing his own line of sauce was that the recipe contained trademarked products, although he declined to say which ones.

The sauce comes in two flavors: Original and hot, which includes habanero.

Fowlkes said he almost just called it “The Sauce,” since he could use it on almost anything.

“The flexibility of the sauce is truly surprising,” he said. “I have people calling me who use it on scrambled eggs, roast beef, catfish and lamb.”

He said that as he was developing the sauce he consistently found himself doctoring the recipe.

“I’ll use any excuse to cook,” he said. “But what started the whole thing was cooking for family functions.”

His family and church parishioners served as guinea pigs for the project.

“I come from a family of cooks. Cooking is always something we’ve owned. It’s important to have a business within the family; not everybody has to be in the sauce business , but it’s good to reestablish that kind of an anchor within the family.”

After perfecting the recipe and marketing the sauce, he said he’s thinking about opening a factory so he can produce more of the sauce on his own. He said he’s also thinking about opening his own restaurant.

Now that his recipe’s set and he’s developed his packaging, for the next few months he’ll work on distributing the product.

He’s currently talking with different grocery chains to carry the product. He’s unveiling his new Web site, www.myunclesbbq.com, later this month. On the current site is his e-mail address where either flavor can be ordered for $5 per 19 oz. bottle.