Our History

Carmine’s Pig is a woman veteran owned business brought to you from a husband-and-wife team (Tony & Karine) from Colorado Springs, Colorado.  We strive to showcase our community by partnering with other small businesses to provide you with the best of the Pikes Peak region. 

Inspired by a cutting board Tony’s Dad made in the 1950’s, Tony and Karine named their company, Carmine’s Pig, to honor the traditions of family, hard work, and perseverance. Tony’s parents immigrated from Italy to the United States to raise a family.  Life was not simple in the land of opportunity, and Tony’s Dad performed many different jobs prior to obtaining his barber’s license.  One of those jobs was building cabinetry, and in his spare time, he made the cutting board that we proudly utilize as our logo.

Barbeque was not a food eaten in Tony’s home growing up.  However, being an immigrant family, they always had multi-family gatherings to prepare and enjoy foods.  They made sausage from pork shoulder and hosted the annual tomato jarring event that involved processing at least 20 bushels of tomatoes.  Family meals were a regular event, where Tony was introduced to many delicious flavors, cooking practices and an attitude that nothing goes to waste!

As a hungry young man, Tony never passed up an opportunity for a new eating experience.  One day, one of Tony’s friends invited him to his first Barbeque, and he enjoyed feasting on Smoked Ribs with his friend’s Homemade Barbeque sauce. Tony’s friend was not willing to share his BBQ recipe, but Tony was undaunted.  He promptly created his first barbeque sauce.

Tony spent years seeking out culinary experiences and opportunities to refine his palate.  He developed a passion for grilling and smoking foods.  Eventually, Tony decided that he wanted to try his hand at creating hot sauces.  After many failed experiments, Tony hand-crafted a hot sauce that tasted good and didn’t look nasty.  Of course, he realized that he made many more gallons of hot sauce than he could share or consume. What to do with all that Hot Sauce?  Tony decided to blend this abundance of hot sauce with his Barbecue sauce and proceeded to give the exciting blend to friends as Christmas gifts. 

The feedback was nothing but positive! Many people wanted to support bringing these unique, innovative Barbecue sauces to market.  That was the origin of a line of Barbecue Sauces under the label of Tony Pigg’s, inspired by Fresno Chiles.  Of Course, as life goes, just as the brand was gaining traction, Tony changed employers, which had some unforeseen repercussions.  The Tony Pigg’s brand had to be left behind, but the recipe is still Tony’s.

Determined to not give up, Tony and Karine created Carmine’s Pig.  Inspired by local events and Chiles from Pueblo Colorado, Tony created four new Southwestern BBQ Sauces using Pueblo Chiles from Musso Farms. These new sauces focus on an exciting culinary change in the Barbeque Sauce Market.

With this project, we want to support and recognize everyone in our community who helped us create these sauces.  We are so grateful to

• our exceptionally talented copacker C-Vison Foods in Colorado Springs
• the wonderful people at Musso Farms in Pueblo who grow the peppers we use in our sauces
• the Chili Connection in southern New Mexico who dries the peppers so we can use them
• and our dear friends at Tokki who encouraged us to keep creating when we had to start over. They have been so supportive and are featuring special select dishes with our sauces because they were so impressed by the Explosion of Pineapple sweetness, chewiness and spice of the Pueblo Dynamite Chili peppers.  Because of them, the label depicts a Rabbit lighting a stick of Dynamite with the exploding Pineapple and Chili on the label. 

We are thankful for our community and look forward to even more fun BBQ creations!  Dig In!