Condiment Category- Not hot and spicy

Winner, Winner-Fish Dinner is how this mustard sauce got its start. It wasn’t always available on the internet or even sold in a store in Michigan. And it certainly wasn’t an award winning Sauce, except maybe to the restaurant regulars, who couldn’t get enough of the stuff. Those in the know, would get some in a recycled washed out Heinz Ketchup bottle. They’d get it for $1.00 and would enjoy it at home. But you had to know where to get it to be the winner.

Fessler’s Original Sauce started during the depression and prohibition by it’s owner of Frank’s Tavern in Fenton. Frank’s tavern was a small cottage on the shoreline of Lake Ponemah. Then converted into a restaurant of sorts when times were tough. Or basically, a hole in the wall speakeasy. They served the best fried fish around and rumor has it, probably an adult beverage to go with it. But the secret sauce was not an adult beverage, but the great tasting mustard sauce (Fish Sauce as they called it) they served with their fish and chips.

Fast forward to 1984-Fessler bought the place from the second owner of the tavern, Marge Nichols. Steve Fessler ran the place for 22 years, still continuing with the winning tradition of serving the “Fish Sauce” with their fish dinners. People came from far and wide to eat at Frank’s Tavern. In 2006, Fessler sold the tavern and in 2009 the new owner’s closed the tavern for good.

But here’s where we give “Get Sauced” a new meaning. Fessler bottled the sauce in 2012, due to great demand from the public. “So many people asked for the recipe, that I, along with my fiance at the time, decided to bottle it.” said Steve Fessler. It took a couple of years to get all of the pieces in place, but within the first year of production Fessler’s Original Sauce was available for purchase at a major grocery chain throughout the state.

Since the bottling of the sauce, Fessler’s Original Sauce has won four Scovie Awards for this great tasting mustard sauce. For those folks that love a good fish fry, take a bottle of this great sauce with you and share it. I’m sure you’ll make some new friends…Winner, Winner-Fish Dinner!