As with many small food businesses, Kris and Pam Malcontento started out creating hot sauces, barbecue sauces and spice blends in their own kitchen. Their particular specialty was using whiskey in their recipes, and friends loved their creations. Fast-forward to last year when their friend Michael Hinds of Nashville Barrel Co. mentioned he’d like some food items to offer in his gift shop.
“Michael suggested brittle,” recalls Kris. “So we started out with a bourbon bacon pecan brittle. After that one, we took a trip to Kentucky to check out what other distilleries were offering in their gift shops. We discovered nothing tasted like whiskey!”
“It was very boring stuff,” adds Pam.
The couple seized on the opportunity by starting up The Whiskey Hound, a specialty food store featuring local ingredients infused into sauces and spices. In fact, they quickly acquired Pick TN status for their use of Tennessee products and became an associate member of the Tennessee Distillers Guild.
Their first breakthrough product was a bourbon beer barbecue sauce made with Homestyle IPA from Bearded Iris and whiskey sourced from Nashville Barrel Co. In addition to marketing their products in distilleries, The Whiskey Hound also sells online and most weekends in Market Shed 1 at the Nashville Farmers’ Market.
Moving their operations to Citizen Kitchens in East Nashville allowed the Malcontentos to scale up their batches, although they're still small-batch homemade products that produce no more than a couple dozen bottles at a time.Â
They reached out to other Tennessee producers and now include products like Corsair’s Triple Smoke and Dark Rye and Old Dominick in Memphis. The couple recognized the value of “hot heads” as potential customers and began to add peppers like ghost peppers, scorpion peppers and jalapeños to their barbecue sauces. They discovered a whole new group of fans in California and, surprisingly, Massachusetts that just can’t seem to get enough of their spicy sauces. They also developed a Nashville Hot Hive Chicken Sauce that has gained a rabid following.
Working with a farmer in Mount Juliet, The Whiskey Hound began smoking spices to use in blends and rubs like Scorpion and Reaper Bourbon Barrel Smoked Sea Salt, Cayenne Pepper Bourbon Barrel Smoked Sea Salt and Jalapeño Bourbon Barrel Smoked Sea Salt that they sell in 4.5-ounce bottles.
They also offer barrel-smoked and Tennessee whiskey-soaked peppercorns that you can add to your grinder at home to add a little spice to your own cooking. Other line extensions include Jalapeño Tequila Pepita Brittle with Bourbon Smoked Salt and a barrel-aged honey in cooperation with Nashville Whiskey Co. and 404 Kitchen chef Matt Bolus.
To diversify its business, the Whiskey Hound has also started making private-label products for distilleries, which they package and label for individual gift shops. They also have plans to create some other new products with Bolus in the future.
They've enjoyed being able to use the walk-up business at the Nashville Farmers’ Market to test out potential new line extensions, and they’ll be in the shed for the next two weekends before taking a little time off for the winter. Future plans include a smoked sugar and a line of hot sauces based on the flavors of favorite cocktails.Â
One last interesting offering is a line of charcuterie trays that are available for delivery in the Nashville area for a no-fuss holiday party platter. Basically, the Malcontentos are hard-working hustlers who have seen tremendous growth in their first year of operation — enough so that Kris has been able to leave his job in finance to work full-time with The Whiskey Hound. If you want to jump on the rocket ship before it takes off, consider doing a little bit of holiday shopping at their online store.
