James Nelson and Jeremiah Tallerine are long-haired and bearded, with an appearance and an air that seems more punk rocker than entrepreneur. But don't let first impressions fool you: These two are the brains and the brawn behind Bravado Spice.

The pair has developed a whiskey-fueled idea into a burgeoning business in the matter of months, thanks to unforeseen good fortune with their Kickstarter campaign — which brought in 273 percent of their original $7,000 goal — plus a dream-team dynamic. And they're not stopping here.

Nelson is the culinary mastermind behind the operation, the one who came up with the unique mixtures and perfected the recipes of their two signature sauces, Roasted Pineapple & Habañero Sauce and Crimson Chili Sauce.

"He wanted to get his creation and creativity into the mouths of the masses," says Tallerine, who had the Internet business savvy to make that happen.

At barely a month old, Bravado Spice has already established a presence around the Bayou City. The guys can be spotted at area farmer's markets, their sauces stocked on store shelves (at Ruggles Green on West Alabama and Revival Market) and worked into the menus at food trucks as varied as Chi'Lantro, H-town strEATs and NOLA's Creole2Geaux.

Plus, they're working with other brick and mortar restaurants — El Gran Malo, for example, and Royal Oak Bar & Grill, which hosted the company's launch party in early October — to get their sauce featured in drinks and dishes.

If it seems like they've been busy, that's because they have. As Nelson tells CultureMap, "When you start with nothing, you have to build your own market."

The sauce of yore

As Nelson and Tallerine see it, hot sauce companies historically fall into two camps: Those that make a decent, mass-produced sauce and the others who make the hottest hot sauce possible. It was due time for a third party.

Bravado Spice distinguishes itself in an inundated industry as a hand-crafted, preservative-free, artisan sauce that combines all natural ingredients in a painstaking process.

Both the Roasted Pineapple & Habañero Sauce and the Crimson Chili are meant to be used as complements to dishes, not as a condiments. And their unique flavor profiles lend to that — they work well on pretty much everything. (I can speak from personal experience.)

Take the sample menu at their launch party, which included a Hawaiian pizza using the pineapple sauce as its base, topped with melted cheese, salty ham and crispy red onion, as well as basic hot wings slathered in each sauce. Or a dark chocolate and butter cream truffle that makes use of the smoky Crimson. Or the Empanadas Veracruzanas at Sirena Seafood that incorporates hot sauce and seafood.

The team is currently working out of Kitchen Incubator, taking over the building each weekend for the prep work and labor involved in filling several hundred bottles, but with a kitchen operations manager on staff and a new vendor signed almost every day, they're already quickly outgrowing that space.

Nelson acknowledged that they chose the word "bravado" because it implied stupid and brave, but that blind gusto has gotten them this far. Bravado Spice is hoping to be everywhere in the city by the end of the year — and to become the first Houston-based hot sauce company to go national in the not-too-distant future.

And that's not to mention the other far-fetched condiment concoctions they have up their sleeves. (A hint: It's going to be delicious.)

"If you have an idea and you think it merits an action, just do it," Tallerine says.