Fairfield businessman Marcoantonio Rodriguez says his family’s Michelada sauce has a tomato base, topped with a little fresh lime juice, Mexican spices and “our secret ingredients” from his family’s Mexican restaurant, La Costa Azul.

But as big companies vaguely tout their special sauce, 11 herbs and spices, or cola recipe, the secret ingredients of the uniquely-named sauce, Miche Miche Marlin Michelada, would remain a property secret, he said.

Rodriguez certainly did not divulge the secrets of the sauce when he and three other contestants appeared practically on February 26 on Bloomberg Television’s “2 Minute Drill”, when he presented the sauce and a business plan in less than two minutes to three successful businessmen / judges for a chance to win $ 50,000 in cash and prizes. He won.

Not surprisingly, national advertising has boosted business and Rodriguez, 30, a graduate of Fairfield High and Sacramento State University, plans to expand his sauce offering in the weeks and months to come – bottles 20 ounces at $ 15 and 1 liter bottles at $ 28, plus larger “commercial sizes” – for gas stations, retail stores, liquor stores, restaurants, sports bars and restaurants. breweries.

“Any retail outlet where the product fits well,” he said in a brief interview on Thursday, adding: “We expect to have our best year” in 2021, despite the economic downturn as the pandemic can provoke.

The sauce, made in the restaurant at 1972 N. Texas St., is meant to be mixed with carbonated or alcoholic beverages, and the product made its first big debut at the 2019 Sacramento Michelada Bash at Cesar Chavez Park, taking first place. in competition.

“There has been a really good response” to the product, said Rodriguez, so good, he added, “We are looking for a second location. Vacaville could be our second location.

While the Bloomberg TV appearance brought in money, which will be invested in “mostly marketing,” the “most valuable part of the deal” was with the show’s sponsors, including LaunchBoom, a Leading crowdfunding marketing agency, he noted.

His marketing effort includes a poignant video, “Our Story” (at https://linktr.ee/michemichemarlin), which first features her mother in the middle of what looks like tomato fields somewhere in Solano County and she tells the story of her family’s immigration to the United States and struggling to join the two ends.

Rodriguez’s parents, Alvaro, a retired fisherman and automotive technician, and Rosa, a housewife and family matriarch, were from Ocotlan, Jalisco state, Mexico. Once in the United States, they started out as farm laborers and life wasn’t a day at the beach, he recalls.

“I remember when I was a kid waking up with my mom and dad, hopping in a van at four or five in the morning. Agriculture, tomatoes, peaches, apricots. It created a different passion for food, ”said Rodriguez, co-founder and CEO of La Costa Azul Food and Beverage Company, established in 2020.

And so the family finally opened a restaurant in 2007, with a bank loan based on the family home, but everyone joined in, he noted, saying, “We couldn’t afford to pay someone. one else.

In a video segment of “2 Minute Drill”, Rodriguez credited his parents, especially his mother, for his inspiration to succeed, recalling the difficulties of the early days of catering at La Costa Azul being, as he described it, “the most popular Mexican seafood restaurant in the region.

One of the three businessmen on the panel said distribution would be the key to the sauce’s success and asked if he had any strategic marketing plans.

The answer seems to be yes, and since July orders have been pouring in from New York, Florida, Hawaii, Texas, Washington state, Virginia, and half a dozen other states.

Rodriguez married his high school girlfriend, Jeaneen, and started and still runs his own life insurance agency in addition to working in the restaurant, where “we make a lot of it once a week and ship it. Our product is fresh.