Press for Ashley Food Co.

Part of a special event called It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Dog, Freakin' Hot Party, the contest features the incendiary sauces of chili pepper guru "Mad Dog" David Ashley, president of Ashley Food Co. Inc., a Sudbury-based distributor of Mad Dog sauces and other products.

Ashley, founder and chief alchemist for the Ashley Food Co., has been creating barbecue and hot sauces for nearly two decades. The 57-year-old has 21 products under his name, produces sauces for 12 other companies, and has sold 1.2 million bottles of one concoction or another.

Sudbury, Massachusetts, August 1, 2007--The question of which hot sauce delivers the most heat has been a source of fiery debate among chili-heads for years. Number one with a bullet! Made with 6,000,000 Scoville Pepper Extract. That’s the 357 Mad Dog Silver Collectors Edition packing 750,000 sizzlin’ Scoville units, along with the heavyweight crown of the Worlds Hottest Hot Sauce ever made. Sporting an oh so apropos golden bullet on a key chain, fastened to the bottle of this killer concoction, making this hotter than hot sauce a very cool collectible. Do ya feel lucky punk?

Never before have I tasted hot sauce off a toothpick. But when my mouth caught fire 10 seconds after tasting "Inferno," one of the hottest of hot sauces in the world, I understood why David Ashley, maker of Mad Dog hot sauces, had urged me to sample his sauce with a toothpick rather than the plastic mini spoon I'd used to taste his other, milder sauces. He also insisted – in a stern but kind tone – that I place the toothpick in the center of my tongue, by all means avoiding my lips and the tip of my tongue....