In any case, Canfield, always looking for new products to make, wished Duhé well. Call me back, he urged, if you decide to do anything with this. But Canfield's curiosity, combined with his sense that Duhé "sounded like a nice fellow, not one of those guys from California or New York who wants to eat the world," prompted him to pass the idea to his vice-president of research and development.
Ecstatic, Duhé rushed out to his local supermarket and emerged with a bagful of spices and two liters of Coke Classic. Over the next few weeks he spent nights huddled with his blender, pouring different combinations in and giving them a gulp. He exchanged results with Canfield, whose early experiments using a pepper derivative actually blistered lips. And after 36 hours or so, the stuff turned really deadly.
Likewise, Duhé gained strength over time. Canfield didn't dismiss his idea. With one eye on his company's payroll and excess production capacity, Canfield admits he was thinking that "maybe we could make the concentrate for him." Besides, says Canfield, "Duhé wouldn't go away. He's a nice fellow and he wears very well."
In May, having come up with some less incendiary samples, Canfield invited Duhé to his Chicago headquarters. They sipped several versions of Cajun Cola, each with a different spice level. That afternoon Canfield sent Duhé to meet with Steve Simon, president of S&S Public Relations Inc. Simon, who served as Canfield's PR arm, tried the cola and couldn't contain himself. You've stumbled on the next national sensation, he told Duhé. Mortgage your house if you have to, but get this stuff on the market. "Cajun was real hot," says Simon. "And I liked it."
Duhé was stunned. A national sensation? The words rang in his ears as he boarded the plane back home. Suddenly he seemed to be living out one of those stories he'd read in business magazines. Here he had come out of nowhere, "a real Mr. Nobody," and in only three months was on the verge of launching -- well, you heard what the man said -- a national sensation. A few more months like this, Duhé thought, and I'll be a fat cat sunning in the Bahamas. How odd to think, then, that those bottles, clinking softly as he loaded them into the plane's overhead compartment, bore no labels at all.
They wouldn't be anonymous for long. Soon everyone, everywhere, would know of Cajun Cola.
* * *
By September 1987, five months after his first call to Canfield, Rick Duhé decided to stop kidding himself. He was not creating the next national sensation in his spare time. He was spending nearly all of his time on Cajun Cola. Divorced and living alone, Duhé now found himself with a constant companion. "When you go to work every day, and all you think about is the project, it's time to go," says Duhé. "I was becoming too engrossed." Sensing his conviction, his boss wished him well. Some of his co-workers expressed envy because, he says, "they wished they had something as exciting going on in their lives." He could hardly blame them; the past few months had convinced him he was onto something big.
Lugging around the 16-ounce samples Canfield had made, Duhé poured a jigger's worth for just about anyone who crossed his path. Two of Duhé's church groups pronounced it heavenly. So did a Bloomingdale's representative, who, without even seeing a can design, expressed interest in staging an exclusive two-week introduction in Dallas.
At night and on weekends, Duhé poked around college libraries, learning about business plans. Once he had a rough draft, Duhé and his accountant, Nancy Menasco, began scouting for financing. Menasco introduced him to Bobby Jelks. A tax accountant with KPMG Peat Marwick in Shreveport, Jelks encouraged Duhé to talk to some wealthy individuals he knew. Jelks sensed that Duhé "just might pull it off."
Duhé was sure of it. Dressed in a pinstripe blue suit, with a wispy beard, the five-foot-seven Duhé projected utter sincerity. His solemn drawl and his boyishly bright hazel eyes combined to communicate dueling messages of sobriety and playfulness. Standing before venture capital clubs, or one-on-one with self-made oil millionaires, he became again the preacher he had been 10 years earlier. Here he was, once again, among believers. "I never heard any negative anything on this concept," he says.
By the time he quit his job in September -- going straight from his office to buy a new gray Honda Accord because he figured, quite presciently, that "my credit wouldn't get any better" -- he had only a few thousand dollars of savings and a $10,000 loan from a friend.
But a marketing consultant, hired to help him devise a marketing plan for launching Cajun Cola, introduced him to Jeffrey Watt, president of ABP/Watt Sales & Marketing Inc., a $220-million food brokerage in Dallas. "A great idea," Watt proclaimed, as soon as he heard Duhé's pitch. "But Cajun is happening now, so we have to move fast." Watt made copies of Duhé's business plan and sent one off to a contact at Stephens Inc., a Little Rock investment banking firm. Earl Bond, the investment banker handling special situations, read the plan, took a swig, and offered his assessment that "it tasted OK, it looked good, and I liked the name." Once they settled on the right financing vehicle, Bond felt sure he could round up investors. "Some investors like the thrill of walking down a supermarket aisle and saying, 'I own that company,' " he says.
Duhé used another contact to find Arthur Eisenberg, who ran his own small design shop. Though Eisenberg's main customers were Fortune 500 types, he found himself offering his services to Duhé on spec. "It was exciting, and it offered us more creative freedom," says Eisenberg.
It was coming together just as Duhé had hoped. All the talent and the money and the drive were descending on his simple invention and would combine to ambush and infiltrate the public consciousness. Whomever Duhé met, it seemed, wanted to do something for him, and didn't mind if he was just a little pressed for cash. Even Bozell Jacobs, one of the world's biggest advertising agencies, took Duhé seriously once Watt got him in the door. "A lot of it was chemistry," notes Todd Bresnahan, then vice-president.
