The fall - and rise - of Troy.

• Position: John Troy

John Troy is searching for success by getting back to his roots - and his herbs and spices.

Outside Cedar Grove, in a little factory he calls Wizard Baldour's Cauldron, Troy mixes up batches of hot sauces and all-natural salad dressings that he sells in grocery stores and specialty shops in the Triangle and along the East Coast.

Troy, 50, concocted the sauces, spiced with such exotic ingredients as miso (soybean paste) and tahini (ground sesame seeds), at his popular Hillsborough restaurant, the Regulator Cafe'. The salad dressings, which he started making in December, are really taking off, he says. The first month he shipped out 75 cases; in April, he shipped 1,000. "It's by far the biggest thing we do."

It has taken Troy more than 20 years to find the right recipe for business success. He thought he had it when he dropped out of Campbell College in the mid-'60s to open a retail stereo business. Sales grew to $1 million, but his first wife and a partner eventually forced him out, he says. (The Durham store now does business as Soundhaus Stereo.)

In 1967, he left for Florida and a job as president of Stereoplaces, a franchise operation based in Tampa - and then he dropped out. "I had what I called a motivation break-down," he says. His business headed for bankruptcy, and he headed out on a personal journey across the country, exploring Eastern religions.

He settled back down in Chapel Hill, where in 1976 he and a...