wings – Memphis Flyer

You can blame the creation of Reevo’s Hot Sauce on the 2008 Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest.

Reeves Callaway, 28, was 13 when his dad let him visit the Smokers Anonymous barbecue team at the Memphis in May competition.

Callaway watched a guy make hot wing sauce. “I guess it was a competition for hot wings,” he says. “I see this guy putting all these things in a bowl.

“I’m seeing grape jelly and orange juice and all these different kinds of spice blends. You see all these things individually. And I thought ‘Holy, shit. There’s a great sauce.’”

Callaway went home and tried to recreate what he witnessed. “I had grape jelly and orange juice.” The result? “It was absolutely terrible.”

Undaunted, Callaway kept trying. “Seeing a sauce come together with all those bizarre ingredients really made me want to try to do that.

“I got a generic Tabasco and cayenne pepper mix. I just started simple. I kind of added a little bit of sweet teriyaki flavor. Some sweet and garlicky flavors and kept it simple instead of the whole pineapple, habanero fruity hot sauces.”

When the next Memphis in May festival rolled around, Callaway was ready. “As a cocky 14-year-old, I said, ‘If I can cook a better wing, then I’m the wing chef this time.’”

His wings came in first place in a blind tasting among team members, and he became the team’s wing chef.

Those wings came in the top 25 that year. “I was addicted after that.”

Callaway, who remained the team’s wing chef, didn’t do much sauce tweaking over the years. “I kept it the same. I just changed how long I would cook the meat. Sometimes I would marinate it longer, maybe sprinkle a little celery salt on it. But the sauce always tasted the same.”

“Look,” he adds, “this sauce is not meant to hurt you. This is not one of those asshole kill-your-tongue hot sauces.”

But, he says, “It’s definitely a savory tang and it’s a growing heat. The first bite is pretty mild. And your seventh and eighth bite, it’s getting hot.”

Callaway decided to take his sauce to another level the year it reached sixth place at the Memphis in May competition. In 2019, Callaway, who graduated in marketing and advertising from the University of Memphis, decided to sell his sauce commercially. He named it Reevo’s Hot Sauce after himself. “I’ve been called ‘Reevo’ by my parents since I can’t remember.”

Reevo’s Hot Sauce is now sold in Memphis establishments, including Cordelia’s Market, King & Union Bar Grocery, Ben Yay’s, and Triangle Meat Market. Callaway makes smaller batches in his kitchen. He uses commercial kitchens for larger orders.

He also makes a local honey hot sauce, which, for now, is only available online at askforreevos.com. “Regular hot sauce with honey added. It delays the heat.

“That honey makes it sweet on your tongue. And the heat slides down the back of your throat. So, a little more flavor and sweet on top on the first bite and the heat builds on the back end.”

As for future products, Callaway says, “I’m kind of open to see where it goes. I’m not really quitting my job to see how big I can make it right now. I’m really enjoying it being a fun thing on the side.

“Maybe a barbecue rub, hot wing spice or something down the line, but nothing in the works right now.” Callaway’s day job, by the way, is perfect for somebody who makes hot sauce. “I work at Shambaugh & Son selling fire alarm systems.”

In Southern culinary circles, pork barbecue might reign supreme, but fried catfish and grilled hot wings are quickly gaining ground.

Case in point: former barbecue champ Randall Hearn, who, now that summer’s over, is spending a lot of time with two good friends: fellow cooking enthusiast Doug McGee and his Presto Fry Daddy deep fryer.

As the Bohicas, Hearn and McGee have been entering food competitions for nearly two decades, first making the rounds at barbecue cook-offs, then moving to catfish, chili, and hot-wings challenges. This week, the duo will be showing off their cooking talents at the 150th annual Mid-South Fair.

“Our name is an acronym for ‘Bend over, here it comes again,'” says McGee, who explains that they borrowed the term from black conservative radio host Ken Hamblin. “We called and told him that we’re gonna make him the honorary president of our team, but since he’s a Yankee, we’re not gonna let him cook.”

“We won the Memphis In May Barbecue Cooking Contest in ’96,” says Hearn, who admits that frying catfish is much easier than sweating over a barbecue pit for days on end.

“There were a lot of extra hassles about cooking barbecue and way too many politics,” McGee says, citing presentation requirements and out-of-pocket expenses as the two main reasons they abandoned the pit for the deep fryer.

The rules of the game at the Mid-South Fair seem rudimentary in comparison to the elaborate rituals that surround Memphis In May. For starters, the competition at the fair is determined by blind judging, meaning that there is no presentation involved. To further level the playing field, each team is given the same product — Pride of the Pond catfish filets or store-bought chicken wings. What combination of seasonings they decide to use and how they choose to cook their entries are the only variables.

“Flavor matters,” Eddie Harmon bluntly states. A judge in the hot-wings, chili, and catfish competitions for the last 10 years, Harmon says that he’s seen a little bit of everything at the fair.

“It’s all according to taste. With the catfish batter, some people make it hot, some make it mild. I’m always looking for a good flaky catfish that has a clean taste. If a fish tastes like fish, it’s not gonna be any good. With the wings, it’s the flavor of the sauce. Once again, everybody cooks ’em different. Some are sopping with sauce, and others are barely wet. Some people bake ’em, some fry ’em, and some brown ’em in a skillet. Some people put greenery around their entries, but most judges will immediately discard every bit of that. We eat a small cup of food from each competitor, and in between, we’ll eat cheese or grapes to cleanse our palates,” he explains.

Hearn uses the same recipe every year — cornmeal instead of flour, salt, a little bit of spice, and a secret ingredient which, he says, “gives a little kick” to the mix. He forgoes a buttermilk soaking to dredge the fish filets in the batter and instead immediately plop them into the Fry Daddy, which is bubbling with regular vegetable oil.

“It’s pretty much how my dad cooks it,” he says. “Most people don’t put enough salt in the batter, and they get bland fish. Or they don’t cook it long enough — you’ve got to keep it in there until it floats.”

For the hot-wings contest, McGee will bypass the deep fryer for a charcoal grill. “I take the skin off and then marinate the wings in a special sauce,” he says, refusing to elaborate on the ingredients. “When they’re cooking, I put more sauce on. They’ll stay on there for 15 or so minutes. I have it down pat,” he says.

Each contest has a total purse of $600 to be split between first, second, and third place winners, but for most competitors, it’s all about the camaraderie.

“You’ll see a lot of couples cooking together. The women doing all the prep work, and the men standing over the grease,” Harmon says.

“I like to win, but it’s more about hanging out,” McGee confirms.

“It’s the same folks every year, which is fun,” says Hearn, who confesses that at home he’ll only fry catfish once or twice a year, usually in the weeks leading up to the Mid-South Fair competition.

“It’s a lot of trouble,” he says. “Most of the time, we’ll drive out to Millington to eat at Miss Sipp’s.”