Bill Shearman / Special to American Press

VILLE PLATTE — The late chef Paul Prudhomme said Jack Miller’s Bar-B-Que Sauce “makes your mouth kinda dance.”

The sauce, now in its 76th year of production and still in the Miller family, is produced in a little plant just east of here. Kermit Miller, 72, Jack’s son, and Kermit’s son, Christian, are two of the four employees.

“Paul is the one who put ‘Cajun’ on the map,” said Miller. “I told Paul when I was a boy, ‘Cajun’ was a derogatory term, but Paul said, ‘No, Kermit,’ we are going to make ‘Cajun’ a brand.’ ”

Kermit Miller, 72, is Jack Miller’s son. Kermit and his son, Christian, are two of the four employees at the Jack Miller production plant.

Bill Shearman / Special to American Press

“Guess what? Paul was right,” said Miller, shaking his head at the memory. “A Product: CAJUN Louisiana” was trademarked as a result of Prudhomme’s marketing success.

It appears on every bottle of Jack Miller’s — pints, quarts and gallons.

The sauce was invented by the late Jack Miller, who used it in his restaurant, The American Inn, which opened in 1941 here.

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“It was the beginning of World War II, and there was no beef. But all the farmers around here had chickens and pigs, so Daddy would buy them and take them to the slaughterhouse.

“He told me that ‘People got to eat.’ Daddy would make that sauce early and let it simmer so when he opened the door, that odor would hit you in the face,” Miller said.

“In those days, people were so poor, Daddy would make a sandwich out of white bread and spread the sauce between two slices.

“He would sell them for practically nothing, but that was the best word-of-mouth advertising he could have done for the restaurant.”

Eventually, the demand for the sauce overwhelmed the food business, and Jack Miller closed the restaurant in 1962 and converted it into a barbecue sauce factory.

Eventually, Miller would add a seafood cocktail dipping sauce, an all-purpose Cajun seasoning and a nosalt Cajun seasoning.

The barbecue sauce is a thick onion sauce with 16 ingredients, including mustard, cooking oil, some hot sauces, a lot of tomato products and a small island of margarine.

Miller makes the sauce in two 100-gallon kettles and one 150-gallon kettle all made out of customized stainless steel.

They are surrounded by steam jackets. The kettles are not filled to capacity so that the sauce can rise during cooking.

Inside the three kettles are little paddles that rotate slowly as the sauce gets hotter and cooks. The paddles are also intrinsic to breaking down the ingredients and maintaining the consistency of the sauce.

When the steam hits just above 200 degrees, Miller releases it around the kettles and the process begins. It is all preset the day before so when Miller enters the shop, usually around 4:30 a.m., he cranks it all up.

Miller cooks about 300 gallons a day. The sauce, once cooled, is piped to a bottling machine, which also caps the bottles and routes them to a labeling machine.

It is a well-engineered operation. There is not a drop of barbecue sauce anywhere in the plant.

Production is four days a week, Monday-Thursday. Friday is for packaging and cleanup, as well as meeting the trucks that distribute the product.

Miller ships to all 50 states and even has a big customer in Germany.

“This Cajun guy married a German gal, and they opened a restaurant in Berlin. They are a huge success; there is always a Cajun connection from here,” Miller said.

“I haven’t much touched the recipe from Daddy’s day. People have told me I ought to make a hotter blend, but hotter is not always better.

“If you make something too hot, it kills the taste, and that is the last thing I want our sauce to do,” Miller said.

On every bottle of the barbecue sauce is the company’s motto: “Has that taste.”

Jack Miller’s is sold at Sam’s and at the 12th Street Kroger store.

Jack Miller’s sign Special to American Press