The night the bottles got names
Every formulation on the shelf started out as a number on a mason jar. Here's how five jars became five names, and why two of them almost didn't make it.
Our story
Twenty-five years of RiverKingz, one kitchen
RiverKingz has been a band longer than JollyGringo'z has been a company, which tells you which one came first and which one snuck up on us. Landon and I met in high school, ended up in the same band by accident, and stayed in it on purpose for twenty-five years.
A band on the road eats out of coolers more than it eats out at restaurants, and somewhere in the second decade of that, the cooler food got better than it had any right to be. Not because either of us went to culinary school - neither of us did - but because you cook the same five things enough times in a row and you eventually stop guessing.
The kitchen and the band never really separated. Half the bottle names on the shelf are places we played. The other half are things somebody said in a green room that stuck. If you ever wondered why a hot sauce company talks this much about a band, that's why - it's not a separate story, it's the same one.
We still play. We still cook. Neither one of us is planning on stopping either, and if something we make puts you in a better mood, then we've done our jobs on both counts.
Keep reading
More from the kitchen
Why we keep the salt under ten percent
Most rubs on a grocery shelf run salt-heavy because salt is cheap and it's the easiest way to make a blend taste like something. We went the other way on purpose.
From the lineup
Read it. Now go cook it.
Every post ends the same way, with a fire and a bottle. Eight small batch rubs and sauces, low on salt so you can season heavy.
