Mad Dog’s Ultra Hot BBQ Sauce – A beautiful meaty taste with an undercurrent of heat starts this sauce off on the right foot. Those are the two characteristics that stand out with Mad Dog’s Ultra Hot BBQ Sauce. Open the bottle and pour it over a thick, juicy steak, paint it on a couple of chicken breasts, or slather it on a kabob. This is good stuff and exactly what a barbecue sauce is supposed to be.

Tomato paste, vinegar, molasses, tamari, salt, garlic, liquid hickory smoke, and Bird’s Eye hot peppers come together in a party of tastes that bring out the remarkable barbecue character you’d expect. Continue Reading

Key Lime provides the foundation for this Key West BBQ Sauce. Other ingredients include brown sugar, soy sauce, Tequila, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, molasses, corn syrup, anchovies, tamarind, New Mex chilies, garlic, onion, mesquite flavor, and a set of secret spices. The ingredients are blended subtly to produce a smooth sauce with a lot of personality. The tequila and lime are happy neighbors that get along well with the mesquite flavor well. The chilies add such a quite heat that it’s almost unnoticeable while providing a nice complement to the other flavors going on. Overall, there is a sweetness followed by a tart aftertaste, thanks primarily to the lime.
Continue Reading

When you think of BBQ sauce you tend to think of dusty Texas steakhouses or small family restaurants in the south where they roast pigs whole and secret recipes are passed down through the generations like family heirlooms. Chances are you don’t think of New York. Well maybe it’s about time you did. Duke’s New York Roadhouse BBQ Sauce attempts to make the case that Northeast BBQ can play ball with the big boys.

There are a number of different types of BBQ sauces and Duke’s Roadhouse BBQ Sauce places solidly in the sweet category. Continue Reading

Fork ‘N Halo BBQ Sauces are among the very best barbecue sauces you can find. The Fork ‘N Halo Fire and Brimstone is over-the-top good; Fork ‘N Halo Heavenly Hickory is just that heavenly. This Fork ‘Halo Original Sin BBQ Sauce doesn’t disappoint.

Defined by honey, evaporated cane, and apple juice, Fork ‘Halo Original Sin BBQ Sauce Sin packs a sweet flavor that makes it addicting. There’s also mustard powder, paprika, and red wine vinegar. Two kinds of peppers, cayenne and jalapeno add a barely perceptible warmth. There’s also onion, garlic, molasses, some kosher salt, and a little black pepper. Like all of the Fork ‘N Halo BBQ Sauces, though, sweet is the star of the show. Continue Reading

Hillbilly Home Brew BBQ Sauce label proclaims this to be from Paw’s private stash. I’m here to tell you, this is some good stuff. it’s beyond good, quite frankly. It takes me back to Pappy’s Moonshine Madness, which is one of the best sauces I’ve tasted, period, barbecue or otherwise. This Hillbilly Home Brew BBQ Sauce is right on par with Moonshine Madness. In fact, I’d say Pappy and Paw have been cookin’ it up together, probably sippin’ away at the booze they use to flavor their barbecue sauces with while they’re at it.

Here’s the deal, folks. I don’t know what hillbillies know about barbecue sauce that a lot of other sauce makers don’t, but whatever it is, the sauces come out at the top of the heap. It’s no wonder granny’s always got a smile on her face. Continue Reading

You will smell honey and mustard the moment that you open a bottle of Charlie’s Hard Times Honey Mustard BBQ Sauce. The honey and mustard are also very present in the flavor. Also leading the flavor are the apple juice and red wine vinegar, tangoing together, tricking the palate into thinking that there is apple cider vinegar in the sauce (there isn’t).

The other ingredients (mostly sweeteners—honey and apple juice were not enough for them, they also added molasses, brown sugar and corn syrup) take a backseat. Garlic and onion have nosebleed seats on the ingredients list, and are not tasted in the sauce, but this is not a problem because the sauce is quite flavorful without them.
Continue Reading

The label on Roadhouse Original BBQ Sauce shows a roadhouse. The color on the label is a light orange, as if the sun is rising around the house. In the picture, smoke slips out of the house’s chimney and dances on the breeze, remind one of the type of smoky smell that you meet along backcountry roads that makes your mouth water.

When I opened the bottle, my nose was very pleased. I smelled raisons, smoke, tomato and a sweet fruit that I couldn’t immediately place by scent. The Roadhouse Original BBQ Sauce had a beautiful unique smell, and it is a beautiful, unique sauce. Continue Reading

Bone Suckin’ BBQ Sauce comes in a jar with a white label. It looks like it was packaged in grandpa’s basement, and it tastes like it too. That’s a good thing, though. With ingredients like tomato paste, apple cider vinegar, honey, mustard, molasses, horseradish, lemon juice, onions, garlic, peppers, and hickory smoke, it looks like it could be something grandpa whipped up as well. Speaking of onions, the sauce is loaded with bits of onion that you can chew, which adds a great texture to the smooth, almost syrupy texture, due in large part to the honey and molasses.

Bone Suckin’ BBQ Sauce has a good down-home quality about it that makes it not only a thoroughly enjoyable Continue Reading

Head’s Red BBQ Sauce was awarded a 1st place Award Of Excellence in the mild sauce category at this past weeks National BBQ Association conference in Memphis. So you know this sauce is good.

Ketchup, chili sauce, onions, garlic, brown sugar, molasses, Worcestershire sauce and chili pepper extract come together in this Head’s Red BBQ Sauce to create a smooth, rich barbecue experience that will keep your party guests satisfied. Despite the chili sauce and chili extract, this barbecue sauce doesn’t have any heat. What it does have is a sweet flavor with a smoky note that sits well with beef, pork, or chicken. Continue Reading

When I look at the label of Old Grand Paw’s Bootlegger’s BBQ and Tonic, there’s Old Grand Paw, wearing a brown hat that looks like it’s seen better days and clenching a pipe through what’s left of his smiling teeth. Under his picture, we see that he is “Company Founder, President & Head of Research and Development.”

Sounds like Old Grand Paw is highly qualified. A quote by his picture reads, “I personally sample each batch!” At the bottom of the label, this claims to be “14 ounces of the best darn sauce ever!” The bottle is unique in that it is shaped like an old liquor or, perhaps, tonic bottle—sort of flat, with only about an inch of depth from front to back label. Continue Reading

Fat Bastard Bear Bite Hot Wild Berry barbecue sauce is a thick and sweet, with just the hint of cayenne peppers beneath the surface. You won’t burn your mouth, but there’s just enough mild warmth to tickle your tummy.

There are several other taste sensations going on in here, starting with blackberries. I’m not talking about blackberry flavoring or bits of fruit. I’m talking about big, fat blackberries somebody picked right out of the woods and dropped into Fat Bastard’s Bear Bite BBQ Sauce to give it a fruity sweetness that can’t be beat. Other ingredients include mustard Continue Reading

I love Fork N Halo BBQ Sauce Fire and Brimstone BBQ Sauce. I’ve tasted many fine sauces in my life. Some of them, like Pappy’s Moonshine Madness, should be in a barbecue sauce hall of fame. This is one of those sauces.The bold sweetish-hot flavor notes of this barbecue sauce make it ideal not only for anything you can cook on a grill, but for any food you might want to dip. I started looking for excuses to use this sauce, but the truth is, I don’t need an excuse. It’s damn good and I’ll eat it when I want to.

Interesting ingredients combine to bring out a sauce that nears the gourmet stage here. Tomatoes, evaporated cane, red wine vinegar, pure honey, apple juice, kosher salt, mustard Continue Reading

This is the kind of barbecue sauce that will have even the pickiest barbecue sauce connoisseurs nodding their heads in excited agreement over the quality of what’s inside the bottle. Made by the same folks who make Louisiana Lickers Sauce, Quaker Steak and Lube Buckeye BBQ is a surprising treat straight out of the bottle.

This is another plate-licking delight. Following the same everything-but-the-kitchen-sink style of ingredient combination as it’s Louisiana Lickers Sauce counterpart, Buckeye BBQ includes ketchup, hot sauce, Tabasco Sauce, cayenne pepper sauce, ginger, and corn syrup. The result is a very sweet sauce with an underlying heat that creeps up on you.

Continue Reading

Pappy’s White Lightnin’ BBQ Sauce proves that no one is regulating how many X’s someone can put on the label of a hot sauce or barbecue sauce. Pappy’s White Lightnin’ BBQ Sauce has three X’s and they shouldn’t. They only have a small heat. Triple X suggests a sauce that will start a bonfire on your esphogus. This one only sparks your tongue.

You can smell tomato, a little vinegar and a little heat when you open Pappy’s. You will taste the tomato, vinegar and heat as well as hickory smoke, sugar, garlic, onion, and a little taste of Kentucky bourbon on the edges (just as it hits the mouth, and also just as the flavor leaves).

Continue Reading

I could write a book about Louisiana Lickers Sauce. The ingredients alone would fill a book, so I won’t be listing all of them; I’ll simply talk about the ingredients I feel play a primary role in this sauce’s success.

First off, Quaker Steak’s Louisiana Lickers Sauce is billed as a wing sauce, and make no mistake about it, this is one of the finest sauces you could ever top your chicken wings with. I did it and ate a baker’s dozen in one sitting. It was a beautiful experience. The thing is, I think I could drink this sauce straight from the bottle and be perfectly happy. Continue Reading

Jim Beam Barbecue Sauce gives you everything you’d expect from a companythat has been making some of the finest whiskey around for over two centuries. Fruit concentrate, molasses, a combination of spices, and Jim Beam Bourbon provide the down-home taste of this barbecue sauce.

Jim Beam Barbecue Sauce is thick and hearty, with smoky flavor and overtones of smooth bourbon. I painted this over a slab of ribs and tossed them on an open charcoal pit. The smell of barbecue ribs in Winter is sure to engage the neighbors. It wasn’t long before a few of them stopped by to chat, waiting, of course, for the ribs to finish. Continue Reading

There are several important things going on with Pappy’s Moonshine Madness ingredient wise that result in a barbecue sauce far and away above any barbecue sauce I have ever had the pleasure of tasting. First things first, though. Pappy’s little concoction may be billed as a barbecue sauce, but this sauce does double duty as a hot sauce alone, useable in any situation you might use a traditional hot sauce. It also makes a fine wing sauce.

Now let me talk about the ingredients. Pappy’s has sugar, vinegar, fresh onions and garlic, anchovies, Worcestershire sauce,  tomato sauce and tomato paste, paprika, black pepper, lemon powder, lemon juice, lemon oil, and natural hickory flavoring. Continue Reading

Sweet is the key word in Black Swan Sweet Cognac BBQ Sauce‘s name and in its flavor. With a short list of ingredients that include soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, orange juice, brown sugar, garlic, onions, ginger, and cognac. It’s the addition of the sweet brandy that gives this Black Swan barbecue sauce its flavor personality.

My wife and I tried this sauce on steak, ribs, and chicken wings. It worked well on each dish. My wife particularly enjoyed it on the chicken wings. I also scored points with my mother-in-law after she tried the Black Swan barbecue wings. I enjoyed each of the dishes we tried the sauce on as well, although it will never replace some of my more favorite pepper-based sauces. Continue Reading

This is one of the best barbecue sauces I’ve ever tasted. I opened the bottle and stuck my finger straight in. Fortunately, my wife doesn’t mind this behavior, and I did wash my hands first.

I tasted the Wild-Mild BBQ Sauce by itself and was impressed right away by delicate balance of sweet, smoky elements of the sauce, as well as the light application of cayenne peppers included to give it added flavor. I say “added flavor” because that’s exactly what the peppers do. There’s no real heat to this, which is the point of  the sauce, but there is flavor out of this world. Continue Reading