Have you heard the story about the A.1. sauce bottles that kept showing up
at a library in Ohio? This popular condiment isn't just known for slathering on your favorite meats.
Keep watching for some vital information about this iconic steak sauce.
A.1. Sauce was invented by Henderson William Brand, who was a personal chef for Britain's
King George IV from 1824 to 1831. As the story goes, George tasted the sauce and voiced his
approval by pronouncing it "A1." Brand was born in Durham, a city in northeast England,
the son of Thomas Brand, an innkeeper and brewer. Nobody knows for sure if a young
Henderson worked in his father's kitchen, but it seems likely, because at the tender age of 12
he was working as an undercook in the kitchen of the future king. George was known as a gastronome
with a taste for haute cuisine. He ascended to the throne in 1820, and shortly afterwards,
Brand became "yeoman of the mouth," a position akin to that of a sous chef.
Brand would later publish an updated version of Simpson's Cookery, a popular cookbook at the time,
and in 1835 he set up a shop in London. His first two products were Essence of
Chicken and Essence of Beef. After declaring bankruptcy, rebranding, and trading as "H.W.
Brand," he was appointed the cook and manager of cuisine at the 1862 International Exhibition
in London. That was where he debuted "Brand's International Sauce," where it was ranked A1.
Considering that it's existed in some form or another since 1862,
A.1. has a rather unsurprising list of ingredients, with a few exceptions.
Notable among them is raisin paste, H.W. Brand's stroke of genius that has been used
in other sauces and prepared foods ever since. The antioxidants in raisins helped slow the decay
of beef in the days before refrigeration, and they also helped mask the taste of decaying
beef. Apparently, even kings couldn't avoid eating some funky steak in the 19th century.
Distilled vinegar also has a utility beyond taste, as it's the world's oldest meat tenderizer.
In its earliest inception, A.1. Sauce used the more expensive
malt vinegar. Older versions of the sauce also utilized orange marmalade
instead of orange puree. The spices and herbs are a trade secret, though. It's safe to say
that back in H.W. Brand's day, there was no corn syrup, caramel color, or xanthan gum.
In 2014, Kraft Foods Group dropped "steak" from the sauce brand's name. So why exactly was A.1.
steak sauce no longer just for steak? Among animal proteins consumed at home,
beef has been on the decline, while chicken is on the rise. As of 2014,
65 percent of A.1. sauce was slathered on steak and not on another protein source.
Clearly a change was needed if A.1 was going to buck beef's declining popularity.
So an ad campaign promoted A.1. as a sauce that can go with "almost everything," which was a
way of helping to solidify the brand's long-term survival in a world of changing consumer habits.
But you might be surprised to learn that the name change was actually a shift back to A.1.'s
original branding. It actually wasn't until the 1960s that it added "steak" to its name
in a pivotal shift to beef. Originally, it was first marketed as a high-quality, all-purpose:
"Saucy sauce different from any other, appreciated on Welsh rarebits,
broiled lobster and English mutton chops."
Even though A.1. Sauce has a thoroughly British origin story, it isn't widely
available in the United Kingdom. Instead, it's only manufactured there for export. It was
previously available in the U.K. as "A1" without the periods, but it was eventually phased out of
British supermarkets in the 1970s. Although A.1. is perhaps the only American version of a thick,
brown steak sauce, the "brown sauce" market in the U.K. is quite competitive.
Options across the pond include the likes of HP and Daddies. The former accounts for
71 percent of the U.K.'s brown sauce market. A.1. simply couldn't keep up with the competition.
However, you can sometimes find imported American A.1. sauce at larger supermarkets in Britain.
And if you're wondering if brown sauce and steak sauce are the same thing,
nobody has a definitive answer. But brown sauce is generally popular with breakfast,
whereas not very many folks are slathering steak sauce on toast.
In 2017, in the town of Avon Lake, Ohio, an unidentified person with a mysterious motive
kept leaving empty bottles of A.1. stashed in different areas of the public library. Employees
found the first bottle in the newspaper section, and after that, up to 40 more
appeared hidden behind books and plants. All were clean, empty, and had the labels removed.
The library's surveillance video was unable to reveal the identity of this mystery bottle-leaver.
Employees theorized that the bottles had been used to smuggle in alcohol, but that hypothesis
didn't hold up to a smell test. The bottles only smelled of tangy A.1. Sauce, and not of booze.
Staff members also ruled out a teenage culprit, as the bottles appeared to be left early in the day.
While this story might not sound exciting enough for an episode of Unsolved Mysteries,
the Case of the Mysterious A.1. Bottles at the Avon Lake Public Library remains open.
Home fragrances usually fall into the floral or herbal family. But in 2018,
A.1. Sauce decided to usher in a brave new world in fragrances
by introducing a line of meat-scented candles for Father's Day. According to A.1.'s promotion:
"Now you don’t have to do the whole cooking thing to get the hearty smell."
The candles came in three meaty flavors, or rather, scents: Original Meat, Backyard BBQ,
and Classic Hamburger. As gimmicky as they were,
the candles proved to be pretty popular, as they sold out in one week.
"My favorite smell in the world is wood fire, so like this feels very close to that."
"I want these candles nowhere near my house."
As weird as it sounds, A.1. isn't the only food brand to venture into the candle-making business.
KFC launched a limited edition gravy-scented candle in 2019,
as well as a very limited edition run of SPF 30 sunscreen that smelled like fried chicken in 2016.
In 2014, White Castle released an Original Slider-scented candle to support Autism Speaks,
and in February 2020 McDonald's debuted its burger-scented candle. Taco Bell seemed to
toy with the idea with a Facebook post back in 2011, but nothing came of it.
Having been around for more than a century, the "A.1." name clearly has a degree of staying power,
and some competitors have attempted to ride the coattails of its success.
But one sauce seller took it a little further than the law allowed.
In the early 1990s, a Connecticut deli owner named Arnold Kaye was selling his own unique condiment
at his store and local retailers. He called it "A.2." Needless to say, this didn't go over well
with the people at Nabisco, which owned A.1. at the time. In 1991, the company filed a trademark
lawsuit against Kaye, who admitted that "A.2." was used to piggyback off A.1.'s brand recognition,
though he also argued it was intended to be a pun. And since the sauces tasted different,
he contended that customers wouldn't believe the two sauces were part of the same product line.
The court wasn't buying it, though, as they ruled in favor of Nabisco.
"I don't buy it."
Kaye was prohibited from using the A.2. name, and he was also ordered to recall
all bottles that were on shelves at the time and have them destroyed.
If you happen to find yourself north of the border with a hankering for A.1.,
you're in luck. Well, kind of. Kraft does sell the sauce in Canada,
but it doesn't taste anything like the A.1. that you're used to in the U.S.A.
These two different versions are concocted from distinctly different recipes. They're both made
from a tomato puree base and contain orange and raisin flavorings, vinegar, and salt. But the
Canadian version is heavy on the sweet stuff, as it's made with sugar, caramel, and molasses. The
American version, meanwhile, derives its flavor in part from dried onion and garlic. American A.1.
sauce also uses caramel coloring, so it has the same look but none of the sweetness.Furthermore,
the Canadian sauce has a much thicker consistency, while American A.1. is a bit runny. Finally,
there's the bottle and label, as the Canadian version doesn't include the periods in the name
and comes in a squeeze bottle, while the American edition has a twist-cap bottle.
"Oh! Canada!"
It's no secret that A.1. sauce makes for an excellent and spicy addition to any meatloaf
recipe. So in 2009, some clever ad wizards had a brilliant idea when they recruited the
musician known as Meat Loaf to appear in an A.1. commercial. In the ad, the singer whips
up a batch of his namesake dish and drizzles on some A.1. sauce before digging in. He enjoys his
first bite so much that he then begins belting out his famous tune "I'd Do Anything for Love."
Mr. Loaf does make one important tweak to the lyrics. Instead of singing the refrain
the usual way as "But I won't do that," he instead croons, "And I always do this,"
as he pours A.1. from a giant-sized bottle onto his food. It turns out that A.1. partnered with
Meat Loaf at just the right time in his life, as he was previously a vegetarian from 1981 to 1992,
and then in 2019 he announced that he was going to try veganism in the coming year.
A.1. sauce has been around for a really long time, so it's safe to say that people enjoy
the taste of the original recipe. But that doesn't mean that the makers of this popular
condiment are resting on their laurels. In fact, Kraft continues concocting new varieties.
That includes the likes of A.1. Sweet Chili Garlic sauce, which contains mildly spicy cayenne pepper,
red bell pepper, and traces of garlic. Kraft recommends using this with chicken nuggets or
buffalo wings. There's also A.1. Bold and Spicy, which is made with Tabasco Sauce,
and A.1. Sweet Hickory, which includes Bull's-Eye BBQ sauce in its recipe.
For those looking for a peppery tang, A.1. also offers a Smoky Black Pepper variety,
while the Spicy Chipotle delivers a decidedly Mexican flavor profile.
But that's not all! A.1. has also expanded its product line to include marinades,
perhaps because they realized that the original sauce was already commonly used that way.
There are a wide variety of marinade flavors available, including Classic,
New York Steakhouse, Chicago Steakhouse, Texas Mesquite, and even New Orleans Cajun.
"Cajun Man, let's get right to it."
When A.1. took the "steak" off it-s name in 2014, it simultaneously unveiled a new tag line:
"For almost everything. Almost."
We're pretty sure that by "everything," they meant "every food." But some people have taken a few
creative liberties with this motto, as they've utilized A.1. sauce for a variety of household
tasks. According to FoodReference.com, one of the most common uses for A.1. sauce outside of the
kitchen is polishing metal. That's because it contains both vinegar and tomato paste,
which are both acidic, and acid can help dissolve tarnish off of metals. Therefore,
vinegar and tomatoes are often used to polish copper, brass, and silver.
But there's more, as A.1. sauce can also be used to repair scratches on wood furniture
and shine shoes; the latter use has also been promoted by some Reddit users. But the most
unique A.1. claim is probably that it can be used to relieve bug bites. How this idea came
to be and whether or not it's accurate isn't entirely clear, but it likely stems again from
the presence of vinegar, which is known to cool skin and reduce burning and stinging.
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