In anticipation of Rick and Morty’s third season, McDonald’s chef Mike Haracz brought back the chain’s discontinued Szechuan sauce from 1998 after co-creator Justin Roiland proclaimed his love for it online. To make the deal even sweeter, McDonald’s announced that it would be giving away a few extra containers of the sauce to lucky fans who retweeted the company the night of the premiere.
As it turns out, one of those lucky few decided to turn the treat from McDonald’s into a lucrative business opportunity. An eBay user who goes by the name dark_falcon began an auction for the Szechuan sauce on Aug. 5. Although dark_falcon’s selling the sauce on eBay, the actual winner of the sauce is his friend, a Twitter user named Robert Workman. Since then, the bid for the sauce is sitting at more than $4,500 at the time of this posting, and Roiland himself has tweeted about it.
According to a note by dark_falcon on the auction page, the profits made from the sale will primarily help them “settle some bills and help out a couple of charities in the process.” Some of those charities, according to Workman, include AbleGamers and Extra Life. In a TwitLonger post published yesterday, Workman acknowledged that he wasn’t trying to achieve any kind of major profit off of the sale, but wanted the sauce to go to a home where it would really be valued.
This isn’t going to be an auction where I take the money and run off to Mexico to open video game stores or whatever. Yes, some of it will be used to pay off bills and right the ship for myself, as it’s really been a long time coming. (And a few friends have noted that.) But this is also a prime opportunity to donate some money to charities like Extra Life and AbleGamers, and whoever else I can think of that’s worthy of donations. So depending where the final tally ends up, a small portion of these donations will be going to help out kids, handicapped gamers and others in need. That goes a much longer way than me guzzling 64 ounces worth of sauce — as entertaining as that might be.
Alongside the 64-ounce jar of McDonald’s Szechuan sauce, the person who ends up winning the auction will also receive a “Rick and Morty-inspired Pelican camera case” that houses it.
The auction is set to end on Thursday, Aug. 10. Rick and Morty airs Sundays at 11:30 p.m. ET.
Update 1: The sauce sold for more than $15,000 and brought in more than 100 bids.
Update 2: Workman emailed Polygon to inform us that the sale fell through on eBay. He added that Deadmau5 had reached out personally inquiring about the sauce and Workman agreed to sell it to the DJ directly. On Sunday, Deadmau5 tweeted that he was “getting that fuckin Szechuan sauce.” Polygon has reached out to Workman to ask how much Deadmau5 bought the sauce for and will update when more information becomes available.
also.... im getting that fuckin szechuan sauce.
— dead mow cinco (@deadmau5) August 13, 2017