"Cowboy Boyd" Hoffmann looks every bit the part of his nickname: pointy-toed boots, western shirt, cowboy hat. An oversized belt buckle pays tribute to his spread, the Sky View Ranch. It's not exactly the wide open spaces — about 250 acres, with about 60 head of cattle, six horses and a few goats — but then again, it's in De Soto, about 50 miles south of downtown St. Louis.

Hoffmann readily admits his ranching is just a hobby, something that makes him happy and allows him to honor the memory of his grandfather. He makes his main living selling commercial insurance — but he dreams of being one of the biggest hats in the cowboy-food business.

"I guess my little hobby has gotten out of control," Hoffmann says.

On the surface, he seems very "aw, shucks" about it. But over the past year Hoffmann has hired a graphic designer, a web-design company, a couple of food-packaging companies and a distributor to market his line, Cowboy Boyd's Authentic Cowboy Sauces.

And as part of the marketing process, his appearance and demeanor helped open some doors. "A lot of folks tell me I make a great cowboy," Hoffmann says.

Hoffmann traces the idea for the Cowboy Boyd's line to about five years ago, when he started holding an annual party at the ranch for friends from all over the St. Louis area. (His insurance office is in Webster Groves.) Seeing the popularity of the barbecue sauce he sent home with his guests as a gift, he began bottling it commercially and trying to get local stores to sell it.

"I got it in a few stores and thought that would be the end of it," Hoffmann says. "But then I figured no one was going to get that excited about just one little product, so I spent the money and developed a whole product line." In addition to four barbecue sauces, the line now includes two marinades, a hot sauce and salsas. The sauces sell online for about $6.

He then started attending select food trade shows, including one in Chicago, where he caught the attention of Bass Pro Shops and of a TV infomercial production company.

Meanwhile, he was also getting a dose of reality. Some retail stores, for example, wanted substantial fees just to give the product shelf space. He started getting looks from TV shopping network QVC, but the network has a lengthy approval process, often more than a year.

Still, he continued to make inroads locally and nationally — and he found that he was having a lot of fun. "This has been my creative outlet," he says.

In addition to the sauces, Hoffmann has developed a line of women's western-wear belts. A current project involves culling a collection of about 1,000 of his grandmother's recipes into "Cowboy Boyd's Authentic Cowboy Cookbook."

Hoffmann, 38, was born and raised in St. Louis, but the Sky View Ranch — which his grandparents called the Sky View Farm — was his frequent retreat. Hoffmann's grandfather Claude Cook was born in Roselle, Mo., near Ironton and moved to St. Louis in the 1920s, taking up the insurance trade with Missouri State Life Insurance Co., which would eventually become General American Life Insurance Co.

In the 1930s, Cook and his wife, Jeanne, moved to the property in De Soto; Hoffmann says his grandfather commuted to the General American offices in downtown St. Louis by train. Cook became a civic leader in Jefferson County, helping to found the Jefferson Memorial Hospital and the State Bank of Jefferson County. He died in 2002 at the age of 97.

Hoffmann loved the property and took it over after his grandfather's death. "I learned how to barbecue out here," he says.

Cowboy Boyd's Cowboy Sauces are sold at Straub's Markets and numerous small and specialty grocers and food shops across the metropolitan area. His website, www.cowboyboyd.com has a list of retail outlets.

Hoffmann hopes to have the sauces in Bass Pro Shops by the summer, and his new infomercial (viewable on the website) test-marketed in December. "We're going to see how it did and go from there," he says.