...with Kelly Mandeville

Kelly Mandeville grew up in Yellowknife. “Some of my earliest memories are of coming home in the dead of winter and smelling my mom’s French onion soup or baking. Some of those formative memories are around food — like cooking over a fire in the middle of winter, because that's what you do when you're from the North,” she says.

Naturally, when Mandeville graduated from high school, her first job was at a restaurant. “I'd always wanted to work in a restaurant because you see it on TV, or you think, ‘That looks so fun. It looks like they get to work with their friends.’ That's what drew me in,” she laughs.

While studying communications, Mandeville worked tirelessly at different restaurants to put herself through university. After graduating, she took on various contracts in communications until a job offer to plan an event for a brewery in Victoria piqued her interest. “I really embraced it. I didn’t know a ton about beer, but I was still really engaged.

I planned the event, it was for Phillips Brewing. A bunch of their leaders came in for the dinner and were super happy with it. Not long after, they asked me if I wanted to keep doing that,” she says.

From there, she was pulled deeper into the beverage industry. “The industry grew as my experience grew, and it felt like the tide was finally rising. During that time, so many breweries we know now started, while I was in the thick of it. It was wild. I did the brewery thing for a while, but eventually burned out. I always felt like I didn’t quite fit in — like I was a thorn in the side of all these white men. I was always digging my heels in. Eventually, you just get tired,” she says.

During the pandemic, Mandeville connected with a hospitality industry group who were also fed up with male domination in the field, and together they started Hop Forward, a nonprofit working to eliminate barriers for underrepresented people in brewing and hospitality.

Eventually, Mandeville and her partner Paul, decided it was time to start a project of their own. “Paul’s my best friend, and it’s a totally open environment. If I have a crazy idea, he’s the first to say, ‘You’re out of your mind, but let’s go for it,’” she laughs. That’s how Monster Sauce was born. The couple began making batches of their homemade chili crisp oil in a commercial kitchen from 8 pm to 2 am on Fridays and Saturdays — the only time slots they could afford.

“One of our friends, who owns a brewery and is a chef, saw a jar of Monster Crunch in the fridge, and asked, ‘What is this?’ And we said, ‘Oh, we make that.’ A couple of weeks later, he told us, ‘You guys need to get it together and do this — it’s really good, and I want more.’ He even said he’d sell it in the brewery if we started producing it,” Mandeville recalls.

“At that point, I had most of a website built, and we had the kitchen. So we said, okay, let’s just go for it. We went all-in launching the site and building all the supporting materials, then we hit ‘go’ — and we haven’t looked back. It’s been crazy,” she says. Now Monster Sauce (and their new hot honey) can be found at over 50 different grocery stores around Alberta!

And the bottle that Mandeville has been saving for a special occasion?

It's a barrel-aged Tennessee whiskey from Uncle Nearest Distillery. “My partner introduced it to me. He was really drawn to it being black- and female-owned. Their master distiller is a woman, and they’re award-winning — actually, they can’t stop winning awards!” says Mandeville. “I had never heard of Uncle Nearest. So we went there, did the full tour, tried the flight of whiskey, and brought home a bottle. Even though I’ve tried it and I love it — and I really want to drink it — I just haven’t yet. It feels really special to me,” she says. But she does have plans for it. She’s saving that bottle for the day she opens her first Monster Sauce factory. Now that’s a reason to celebrate!