Photos by Linda R. Campos

For many kids, going to a friend’s house for a sleepover means pizza, popcorn and maybe even an ice cream sundae. But in the Cort household in Weston, sleepovers with friends always meant pancakes for breakfast with Nana’s Special Sauce.

An original blend of melted butter, maple syrup and Marshmallow Fluff, Nana’s Special Sauce was conceived and concocted by Nana, aka Marie Cort, mother of five and grandmother of 11, according to Ron Cort, second-oldest of Marie’s children.

Ron loved his mom’s special pancake sauce and made it for his own kids when they were growing up. “My dad would make it whenever we had sleepovers,” says Ron’s daughter, Amanda Cort. When Amanda would come home from college, her friends would ask if her dad could make Nana’s Special Sauce for them. “If you grew up in my town and were friends with me and my brother and my uncles, you would have had it,” she says.

After hearing from many friends that he should bottle the sauce, Ron decided to give it a try.

Though Ron had business experience from his 27-year career in trucking, he lacked any experience in food or consumer packaged goods. With help from his four siblings to fund the initial start-up, he worked with the Cornell Food Venture Center to transform his mother’s stove-top recipe into a commercial formula. Instead of Fluff, which contains eggs, he adapted the recipe to contain just maple syrup, butter and marshmallows. “I’ve been having fun learning the process,” Ron says. The sauce is currently made by a co-packer in Bernardston, MA, and contains maple syrup from Hager Brothers Farm in Shelburne Falls, VT.

With a label and logo designed by Ron’s wife, Julie Betters, Nana’s Special Sauce debuted at the Boston Local Food Festival on the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston in September 2022.

“That was my first public outing,” Ron says. “Everybody would roll their eyes and say, ‘Oh, this is so good.’” He adds, “I was so taken by all the remarks and all the reactions to everybody tasting it, I knew we had something special.”

As Ron sold his product at farmers markets (Boston, Framingham and Wayland) and food shows (the Specialty Food Association’s Summer Fancy Food in New York), Amanda helped with social media and her brother Jason helped to work the booths. “Having my kids involved in it is rewarding,” Ron says.

Words on the label reflect two of Nana’s passions: bringing joy to others and helping children in need. Ron says that serving her special sauce was a way to bring a smile to the breakfast table. In honor of his mother’s passion for helping children, Ron is committed to donating a percentage of the sauce’s profits each year to a children’s nonprofit organization. Last year he made a donation to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and to Easter Seals of Massachusetts.

Nana’s Special Sauce is now sold at over 30 stores in seven states, including Duck Soup in Sudbury, Pemberton Farms in Cambridge, Shubie’s Marketplace in Marblehead, Volante Farms in Needham and Ward’s Berry Farm in Sharon.

Though Amanda likes to eat the sauce poured over vanilla ice cream, “Pancakes, to me, mean Nana’s Special Sauce. I don’t like pancakes without it.” She adds, “Now that it’s in a bottle, the whole world can have it.”

nanasspecialsauce.com

This story appeared in the Winter 2025 issue.