On this week’s episode, I sit down with Alvin “Pepper” Baumer III, the president and CEO of Crystal Hot Sauce and born-and-bred ambassador of New Orleans. Pepper shares his Five Rules for Southern Hospitality straight from the Big Easy—where the host is always gracious, the drinks are always served cold, and the music never stops. We chat about what it means to take on the responsibility of hosting, how to curate the perfect vibe, and how to make everyone feel like family the moment they walk through the door.

Talking with Pepper reminded me of why I love hosting. It’s something I grew up with—watching my family welcome friends, neighbors, and near-strangers into our home with open arms, full plates, and the right music flowing from the speakers. Pepper gets it. His approach to Southern Hospitality is rooted in intention: making sure his guests are fed, heard, seen, and sent off already dreaming of the next invite. We connected over our shared love of New Orleans’ culture, where music and food are more than entertainment: they’re acts of service. From backyard boils to black-tie dining, Pepper shares the ethos that’s kept his family’s love for hosting alive for over a century and why he’s honored to carry on the tradition of care, flavor, & celebration.

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Transcript

Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz.

Today, I sit down with New Orleans native Alvin “Pepper” Baumer III, the CEO and president of Crystal Hot Sauce, an iconic American hot sauce that has been around for over 100 years. Pepper shares his five rules for Southern hospitality and his deep love for the Big Easy. We chat about the importance of having hot food and cold drinks, the importance of music setting the vibe, and how to leave your guests always wanting more.

Let’s get into the rules. Pepper, great to meet you. Appreciate you sitting down with me today. Coming all the way from New Orleans, the one LA to the other LA. Welcome to the show.

I appreciate you, man. Thanks for having me.

When I hear third generation, 100-plus year American heritage company, all I could think about are the parties your family must throw. What is a typical soiree like in the Bomar extended family?

Well, we’re in New Orleans. Partying and food and culture is right in our wheelhouse. Right off the bat. Being born into a food family on one side, and also on the other side—my mother’s side of the family is in the restaurant industry. So parties and birthdays and Christmas is just like a come one, come all extravaganza wherever we go.

What’s the music and food situation like?

It’s funk, jazz, you got crawfish boils, crab boils, your Cajun boudin and stuff like that. But then you get the upscale, like white tablecloth service at like Commander’s and Herbsaint and those places too, where it just—you can’t have a bad time here.

You were literally born into this. The legend goes that your grandma gave you your nickname, Pepper, while you were still in the womb.

Too many Albans running around. She was just done with it. I am named after my grandfather and my father, but I’ve been going by Pepper since the womb, and that’s the only name that I’ve ever been called. Unless I’m at the DMV.

What’s it like to be born into this destiny, this responsibility of taking the mantle of your family’s heritage and legacy?

A lot of personal pride comes with it for sure. My name is Pepper. I’m a walking billboard. I wear it on my sleeve. It’s part of my identity. It’s part of my family. So I really take that to heart when we ever have people compliment all of our products, that’s phenomenal. But even when people say hey, like we wish you kind of did something here better, I take that to heart. And I really go back to the team and be like okay, well this didn’t taste well, so what do we need to fix that? How do we improve on that? Because not only do we do our Crystal-branded products, we also do a lot of private label business for customers around the world. So we do a lot of cutting, and they’ll be like hey, this is great but we would rather more heat-forward or citrus-forward or however you want to do it. And then we really try and get to the customer exactly what they want.

I imagine that customer relationships and those personal connections all over the world leaves you with a very full dance card. What is your approach to being a guest at someone else’s party or what is your approach to being an ambassador out in the world?

Being a guest at someone else’s party, forgive me, but you can’t show up ass and face. You always gotta show up with at least a bottle of wine or some sort of thank you to the host. I’m very proud of where I’m from, New Orleans—especially being a junior in high school when Katrina hit. That galvanized everybody in my generation from here. We’re here to stay. We wear that New Orleans bandana wherever we go, like a badge of honor. Everybody wants to come down here for Jazz Fest. Everybody wants to come down here for Mardi Gras. Now, granted, those things are great too, but you can come down to the city anytime and have a phenomenal time.

What I’ve always loved about New Orleans and big families from New Orleans is this hospitality that runs through your veins, that you just get a sense of when you show up, you know that you’re going to have a good time and be taken care of. Which is why I’m so excited to talk to you today about your five rules of Southern hospitality.

Now, coming from the Northeast, it was a while before I had a chance to really experience Southern hospitality for the first time. And when I did—not saying the Northeast doesn’t take care of you—but it’s a completely different approach. I remember going to my first wedding below the Mason Dixon. And I would say that your very first rule ties into my experience there. What’s your first rule of Southern hospitality?

My first rule is a warm welcome, preferably with a cocktail. Hospitality is in the blood. My mom’s family is the Brennan family. So we have a lot of restaurants in our wheelhouse. We have Christmas parties. We host Mardi Gras parties. We have all that set up for people. That’s not a normal occurrence. Most people don’t kind of come into a household like that. And we live a block off the parade route. You walk in and it’s just open bar, open food, come one, come all. There’s nothing that you can’t do. It gets a little rowdy from when we were in college to when my younger cousins were in college. But now we’ve all kind of grown up, and the amount of bicycles that used to go to the house are now been exchanged for baby strollers.

I love it.

It’s fun to see how it’s come full circle. I grew up going to my aunt and uncle’s house when I was my kid’s age. And for me, trying to bring it back, and they’re coming at this time—same house, same corner—kind of surreal. That is really kind of getting back to that. Going back to the very first thing of my first rule, you always got to be the most welcoming host that you can be. When you host and agree to host, it is a responsibility.

Yeah. I mean, you can relax, but you can’t take your eye off the ball.

Correct.

What’s your rule number two?

The food hot and the drinks cold, man. It’s tried and true. You can’t go wrong when there’s cold drinks flowing, preferably being served to you. And staying with the food—what’s the best tasting sandwich that you can have? A sandwich made by somebody else. Those are always the best things to do. There’s no worry. You’re there. Everything’s taken care of for you. The hassle-freeness is one of the best things that you can get from Southern hospitality parties.

Wow.

When you’re having these big Southern hospitality parties, especially when your family is such a big part of the community and has restaurants—not everyone who’s going to come to the party is someone that you know, or might even be one or two degrees of someone you know.

Yeah.

But that’s all right because of your rule number three.

You got to make everybody feel like family. To your point, if I have a friend who brings a friend, we don’t balk at that. Come one, come all. As long as you’re at my house, you’re going to have a great time. I’m going to make sure you’re having a great time. But also, I’m going to engage with you—kind of know who you are if I don’t know you.

I love that.

What brought you here? At the end of the day, we want people to have a great time and want to keep coming back. We always have to have our best dress on, if that makes sense.

Absolutely.

You want them to see all the positives that goes on in the city and in the community. It gets them wanting to come back to New Orleans. This is kind of our bread and butter. We have to kind of get people to keep on coming back and coming back and wanting to come back.

Food and hospitality are two of the biggest draws in New Orleans, but there is a third that everyone loves. What’s your rule number four?

Music and vibe, man. It’s got to keep the party going. Mardi Gras, you always have your Mardi Gras music with The Meters and Dr. John, and then with Jazz Fest, it’s always Trombone Shorty, Kermit Ruffins. There’s kind of themes to it, but the cool thing about New Orleans is how easily accessible the music scene is here. Everybody knows New Orleans is known for music. It doesn’t get the hype that Nashville, or country row, gets. I think a lot of people underestimate how culturally impactful New Orleans music is.

You and I are the same age of like rap. New Orleans put Southern rap on the map. And then Dave Matthews Band, even though he’s not from here, he’s from South Africa, he has a lot of New Orleans influence on all of his music. And Jon Batiste is a New Orleans musician who’s up in New York all the time. And he’s living up there. He went to Juilliard. New Orleans has a very big stranglehold on the music scene around the world that I don’t think it gets as much credit as it is deserved.

You can take it for granted, right? The good food, the good music, and the good vibes. But it does take a bit of an arc to host.

100%. You got to make sure that you have a little bit of something for everybody. If it was up to me, it’d be rap all day. But no, you got to sprinkle in some funk. You got to sprinkle in some 70s. You got to sprinkle in some country every now and then. Just like New Orleans, the big melting pot. So whenever you come over to a house party or a Mardi Gras party or for Christmas, it’s always some sort of hot food, cold drinks, great music. It’s very hard to mess up.

You know, at the end of the night, or I guess in New Orleans, the early gray light of dawn, and the drinks have been quaffed and the music is starting to peter out—there can be a little bit of a sadness of the party ending. But your rule five suggests this to make sure that the Southern hospitality continues on even after the last guest has left.

You just got to end on a high note. You want to make them wanting to come back for more whenever they leave. If you follow the first four rules of what I talked about earlier today, then rule five is pretty much serendipitous. It’s there.

I love that.

They’re already talking about, God damn, I can’t wait to come back to have this party here. Or I can’t wait to come back to the city. Or I can’t wait to come back to Jazz Festival. I can’t wait to come back to Mardi Gras. They’ve made a memory that they’re going to hold on to forever. And they keep on wanting to come back for more.

Well, Pepper, I cannot thank you enough for sharing your rules. If people want to get some Crystal Hot Sauce or see what projects you’re working on or just follow along with your adventures, where can they go?

So for website and merch, you can go to crystalhotsauce.com. For social media, it’s just the official Crystal Hot Sauce.

Congratulations. I’m looking forward to hopefully getting down to New Orleans, enjoying some of your Southern hospitality.

The door’s always open. Come on.

Thanks, Pepper.

Appreciate you, man.

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