Athens-area makers of a barbecue sauce and energy drink reaping success after awards
A natural energy drink and a barbecue sauce – both of which call Oconee County home – were among the 12 products recognized in the annual University of Georgia’s UGA Flavor of Georgia competition held earlier this year.
In the annual contest conducted by UGA’s College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Bishop-based HIBO, which makes a variety of zero-calorie energy drinks with a hibiscus base, won in the beverages category, and Statham-based Oconee Creations won in the barbecue sauces category for its small-batch Oconee White Gold sauce.
The UGA Flavor of Georgia competition, sponsored by the Georgia Agribusiness Council, the Georgia Department of Agriculture and Georgia Grown, is a food-product contest for established or market-ready foods and beverages made in the state. Barlow’s Peach Cobbler Syrup, made by Barlow’s Foods in Atlanta, was this year’s grand-prize winner over more than 120 other entries.
HIBO and Oconee Creations are relatively new companies, although the founders of both outfits spent years experimenting before bringing their products to market. Clayton Oetting, who with his wife Phobe, run HIBO, said his interest in food science found him making his own drinks, while James Argo, who owns and operates Oconee Creations, said he started making barbecue sauces for cookouts in 2020.
“I decided to start making beverages and seeing if I could sell them at farmers markets,” said Oetting, an Augusta native who studied physics and food science at UGA. “The first one I ever made was a like a diet cola that used natural sweeteners versus the artificial stuff. I tried doing that but it was in my off-time at school and it didn’t turn into anything.”
“I have been making sauce for more than 20 years,” said Argo, a North Carolina native who grew up in Gwinnett County and worked in telecommunications for 22 years. “I remember first doing it in 2000. I would bring it to cookouts for my buddies. That was the original Oconee Gold. I got talked into selling it by word of mouth during the pandemic.”
Oetting said he’d been able to devise a natural sweetener for his products but ran into the age-old quandary regarding something healthier not necessarily being something tastier. The solution came from a UGA professor who had recently visited India.
“A professor of mine from food science took a trip to India said while he was there he tried hibiscus tea and he could tell it just from drinking it, because it was so was tangy, that it would be a great replacement for what we were trying to do with preservatives,” he said. “It also has a cool red color, which would be attractive.
“So we bought some hibiscus flower, which is actually a super-food, and we brewed it and quickly realized this was a great base for what we were trying to create. It doesn’t have much flavor but it has lots of organic acids and other health benefits – like antioxidants and vitamins – that provide a great base for a drink to have a long shelf life and benefit with only one ingredient. Once we created a natural sweetener and figured out how to use hibiscus to make a simple-but-beneficial drink, we quickly created a recipe and took it to market.”
Argo described his first sauce to make it in stores, Oconee Gold Original, as a sweet, mustard-based blend. The award-winning White Gold follows a time-honored Alabama recipe, although Argo prefers to tout his home state.
“White Gold is my take on a white barbecue sauce,” he said. “It still has a bit of a mustardy look, but it’s a mayonnaise-based sauce. White sauces are usually called ‘Alabama White,’ but I live in Georgia so I refuse to call it that.”
Suffice it to say, a lot has happened for HIBO and Oconee Creations in the last year. For HIBO (which has flavors in peach, key lime and pineapple), an agreement was reached with a national corporation, new board members have joined the fold and a new distributor gets the product out to even more new retailers. And Clayton and Phoebe are expecting their first child in July.
Argo, who essentially has a one-man operation, along with assistance from his wife Kelly, a teacher at Dove Creek Middle School, and his daughters Addie, 15, and Hadyn, 12, got out of the telecommunications business last year and got to work, and in less than 10 months he’s got products in 81 stores and seven states. Besides the original recipe and White Gold, Oconee Creations also has wing, jalapeno and hot sauces and a new product, a dry rub.
Both Oetting and Argo said they were happily surprised to win UGA Flavor of Georgia awards.
“We were over the moon,” said Oetting. “At the end of the day, taste is one of the big things we set out to put first, so to win a competition that was a lot about taste was very rewarding. We knew people thought the drink we created tasted good and it’s starting to become popular, but to actually win a competition against a lot of other beverages was really cool. It’s like a nice pat on the back.”
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“It was pretty awesome to find out,” said Argo. “I was humbled. I got to meet the two other teams we were competing with and they were great folks. And that’s what I found out about this industry that I’m now immersed myself in is the majority of people I’m dealing with root for you. It’s a great brotherhood and sisterhood.”
HIBO products can be found locally at Earth Fare in Five Points, Jittery Joe’s and later this month at Golden Pantry. For more information, visit www.drinkhibo.com.
Oconee Creations products can be found locally at the Stripling’s General Store, Golden Pantry Market, Corner’s Edge Butcher Shoppe of Athens in Green Acres Shopping Center, and the Golden Pantries in Watkinsville and Bishop. For more information, visit www.oconeegoldbbqsauce.com.
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Flavor of Georgia wins in Athens find success with BBQ sauce, drink
