About us
Business operations for Miners Mix officially commenced September of 2009, in a booth at the local Blazin’ Hog BBQ competition in Mariposa, CA. However, Miners Mix had its genesis in the late 1960s when 12 year old Dave began grilling burgers, steaks, fish, chicken, ribs and just about anything else on the family’s charcoal grill.
Dave is creative; grilling and BBQ, provided a great forum to experiment with flavors and spices. Throughout high school, college, graduate school and beyond, Dave continued to hone his grill skills and knack for creating flavors through sauces, rubs and marinades. Some of these became Miners Mix products, many thankfully, were never to be tasted ever again.
In 2002, the family moved for a year to Australia, a wonderful place except for just about zero Mexican cuisine, beyond the few frozen tortillas or canned salsas with sugar as the first ingredient. Six months in, Dave and the rest of his native Californian family began to suffer symptoms of Mexican food withdrawal and so began a self-taught quest to learn scratch-made tortillas, refried beans, and chorizo using minced (ground) beef.
Upon return to San Diego, and to a plethora of chile varieties unavailable in Australia, Dave continued to refine and perfect his chorizo recipe. He didn’t like that grocery store chorizo contained pig parts he didn’t really want to think about eating, or that the stuff was 40% grease. Home-made, ground beef chorizo became a somewhat regular meal in the household.
Wanting to escape the congestion of San Diego, Dave and family moved to Mariposa, the gold mining Mother Lode region near Yosemite National Park. Some years later, he gave some of his chorizo mix to friends, who upon tasting, urged him to commercialize it. After a great deal of persuasion over many months, Dave finally gave in. Miners Mix, harkening back to the gold mining heritage of the region, was born.
All of Miners Mix products are a result of dissatisfaction with commercial seasoning blends that tend to be loaded with salt, artificial ingredients, flavor enhancers and little else. Every single product is a unique blend of spices that does not mask the inherent flavor of the food, nor become a predominant taste. Miners Mix subtly enhances what is there to start with.
All of us who have helped Miners Mix grow, family, friends, employees alike, take a lot of pride in the fact that none of our ingredients are over 3 syllables and that we remain true to our slogan “If It Didn’t Exist In 1850, It Ain’t In Here!” That slogan means that every product is 100% natural, low in salt, and contains no flavor enhancers of any kind!