Jim Hicks gets sauced almost every day -- in a culinary sort of way.

As owner of J. Hicks Specialty Sauces, the 44-year-old is creator, distributor, salesman and almost everything else for his company, which produces a variety of sauces.

Operating out of a cramped building in Sandy Lake, Hicks produces seven varieties of sauces with an eighth on the way. With aesthetic sauce names like Garliquin Romance, Peachburgh Express and Tennessee Tickler, he's launched an enterprise designed to capture the retail and commercial food markets.

Initially inventing sauces for chicken wings, Hicks said they can be used on any kind of meat or seafood to enhance flavor.

His start in the business world had nothing to do with food.

A trained musician, he was a drummer with a rock band. With long hair reaching nearly to his waist he looked every bit a hyper rocker.

"I was a definite product of the '80s,'' Hicks said.

Now with hair that more resembles the tightly-cropped executive look, Hicks is grooving to a different beat.

Getting over the rock world, he and his wife, Gina, started a maid service business in the Pittsburgh. Since his parents owned a restaurant in the city, Hicks worked at the establishment over the years, cooking and tending bar.

"I've always loved to cook,'' he said.

He took his own plunge in the food business in 1995 when he began selling chicken wings with his own sauces at the I.C. Light Amphitheater on the outskirts of Pittsburgh in 1995. Gaining a following among the crowds who flocked to the outdoor theater, Hicks frequently got requests for bottled versions of the sauces.

"I didn't want to put something in a jar and hurt someone. I didn't know what my liabilities were,'' he said.

After doing research, he had his sauces tested for pH content. The chemical test determines the acidity or alkalinity of a material. While it's OK to have either, too much alkaline or acid in food creates a volatile mixture causing it to spoil quickly. Test results showed his sauces were fine.

At the same time he began entering his sauces in cookoff competitions and won awards from 1995 through 1997.

"I still wasn't totally convinced about going into business,'' Hicks said.

He decided to test the waters.

His first commercial customer was a restaurant barely generating 40 pounds of wings sold a week. Six months after introducing his sauce, Hicks said weekly wings sales at the restaurant zoomed to 400 pounds.

"At that point we started knocking on doors -- restaurants, pizza shops and little markets,'' he said. Operating out of his kitchen at first, Hicks invented sauces for commercial operations.

He produces all sauces from scratch rather than buying the stock ingredient -- barbecue sauce -- from suppliers.

"I can make the sauce cheaper that way,'' he said. "But, more importantly, I can create a better sauce by using my own ingredients rather than taking someone else's sauce and then trying to doctor it up.''

Hicks and his wife moved to Lake Latonka in 1996, where he worked out of his kitchen.

There were some harrowing times though.

Looking to craft a potent hot sauce one day at his home, Hicks was using habanero mash -- a mushy, supernova-hot, concentrated version of the famed pepper. Small amounts are diluted in sauces to create a sizzling-hot sensation.

His brother-in-law popped in to help out and began tasting the ingredients in unmarked bowls. Before Hicks could stop him, his relative scooped up a large finger-full of the pure mash and attempted to eat it.

"His eyes rolled back and I thought he was going to pass out,'' Hicks recalled. "He ran to the refrigerator and pulled out the first liquid he could get his hands on -- a bottle of chocolate syrup.''

Hicks watched helplessly as his gasping relative chugged down the syrup and then began stuffing bread, cookies and milk into his mouth beyond capacity to relieve the excruciating pain.

"He said it was like his mouth was on fire and his tongue was strapped into an electric chair,'' Hicks said.

His relative recovered.

"It's the oil that really generates the heat in a pepper,'' Hicks said. "Some places use just the oil in their sauces but the only thing you retain is the heat. I've found that by using the mash it retains more of the pepper flavor.''

His hot sauces come in three versions. From least to most hot are: Afterburner which has a slow kick; Too Fargin' Hot, that has a zing; and OUCH!!, which says it all.

Setting up operations in a small Sandy Lake building in 1999, Hicks' won first place in the Chili Pepper Magazine's national 2000 Fiery Food Challenge the same year.

Hitting local retailers such as Giant Eagle, his sauce can be found in more than 200 stores. He uses his wife and relatives when needed but often works by himself. He's looking to hire his first-full time employee in upcoming months.

He just inked a deal with Pittsburgh Brewing Co. to use its Augestiner Beer as an ingredient to create a new sauce: Augestiner Beer Barbecue Sauce.

Branching out into producing private label salad dressings for convenience stores, Hicks believes intensive marketing will be the key to any future success.

Competing in the food industry dominated by giant players such as H.J. Heinz isn't easy.

"You have a set number of condiments in your refrigerator and kitchen,'' Hicks said. "My goal is to become one of those condiments.''

Information: 724-376-3017. On the Internet: www.jhicks.com