Ingredients:

• 1/2 onion, minced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 3/4 cup bourbon whiskey
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 tablespoon salt
• 2 cups ketchup
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
• 1/3 cup cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons liquid smoke flavoring
• 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/3 teaspoon hot pepper sauce, or to taste

Directions:

1. In a large skillet over medium heat, combine the onion, garlic, and whiskey. Simmer for 10 minutes, or until onion is translucent. Mix in the ground black pepper, salt, ketchup, tomato paste, vinegar, liquid smoke, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, and hot pepper sauce.
2. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer for 20 minutes. Run sauce through a strainer … Continue Reading
   

Bear Claw Chipotle Barbecue Sauce – This sauce has a deep, reddish-brown color and an exceptional pour quality. It lays perfectly over any meat you use it on and cooks to a nice and thick consistency, allowing its flavor to stay with the meat and compliment every bite.

Any sauce made with chipotle stands a chance of being good. The smoked peppers give it a taste that suits barbecue well. In addition to the chipotle peppers in Bear Claw, there’s a tomato sauce base with sugar, worcestershire sauce, salt, crushed pineapple, pineapple juice, and some bell peppers. None of these ingredients, including the pineapples, take away from the wonderful smoky taste of the chipotles, which remain the key flavor personality throughout. Continue Reading

Dave’s Gourmet Badlands Barbeque Sauce – Usually, when I’m about to taste a product by Dave’s Gourmet, I take some preparations. I have 911 on speed dial, I keep a large glass of iced tea handy, and I make sure no one is around to hear me scream and see me cry. So I was surprised to find that after tasting Dave’s Gourmet Badlands Barbeque Sauce, no trips to ER would be necessary.

To be fair, the label indicates in two places that Badlands Barbeque is not as much about heat as it is about flavor. And there it definitely has plenty. Continue Reading

Demon Pig Blaze Orange BBQ Sauce – The blue pig with the devil horns and tail on the label of Demon Pig Blaze Orange BBQ Sauce is one ugly specimen of swine. But all is forgiven, because the sauce inside the bottle is so good I feel like I could roll around in it like an oinker in a mud puddle. On second thought, that might be such a good idea since this sauce has some serious spice to it and that might irritate my gentle bits.

Of course, I’m a fan of the regular Demon Pig BBQ Sauce anyway, so when I saw “Blaze Orange” I was thinking “just as good, only better!” And I was right. Continue Reading

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup bottled apple butter
• 1/3 cup Catalina dressing
• 1/3 cup catsup
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients. This will keep in the refrigerator for a few weeks or may be frozen. The recipe can easily be doubled or tripled.

Melinda’s Coffee BBQ Sauce – There’s an extremely complex set of tastes going on with Melinda’s Coffee BBQ Sauce. Being a coffee lover, I believe that coffee is a fine taste enhancer for just about anything, and barbecue sauce would have been high on my list of things to use it in. I wouldn’t have been wrong. Coffee is the perfect additive to a barbecue sauce, as Melinda’s Coffee BBQ Sauce very quickly establishes.

Melinda’s Coffee BBQ Sauce was inspired by the winning recipe in 2002 contest. It’s no wonder it was a winner. The complex tastes here are due to a wide range of ingredients that work well to enhance whatever meat you decide to barbecue with. Continue Reading

Fork ‘n Halo Heavenly Hickory BBQ Sauce – There’s a fat pink pig in a red devil’s suit on the label of Fork ‘n Halo Heavenly Hickory BBQ Sauce, but something is dancing on my tongue and I don’t think the satanic swine is it. For clues, I look to the back of the label and the ingredient list: tomatoes, evaporated cane juice, molasses, red wine vinegar, honey, apple juice concentrate, salt, smoke flavoring, mustard powder, smoked Spanish paprika, onion, garlic, chipotle pepper, black pepper, and xanthan gum.

At the outset, I’m ruling out the xanthan gum. Continue Reading

Mad Dog BBQ Sauce – In the world of commercial barbecue sauce, there are the dozen or so major brands that take up all the space on the supermarket shelves, then there are the hundreds, perhaps thousands of small independent manufacturers whose sauces are sold in specialty stores or perhaps only online. Mad Dog bridges these two worlds. It’s probably one of the largest if not the largest of the smaller brands and is well known and highly regarded by much of the public.

How does a smaller brand get to play with the big boys? It helps to be super delicious and have award-winning quality. Mad Dog’s recipe is pretty simple – Continue Reading

Ole Ray’s Blackberry Wine Barbecue and Cooking Sauce – Lord, give me mercy. That’s what I said when I opened this bottle and put a spoonful of this in my mouth. This is fine dining, gourmet, Heaven-on Earth eating. The chicks will moan, the guys will say, “Oh yeah.” I’m not exaggerating. You’ll find reasons to cook with this stuff.

Is it a great barbecue sauce? Yep. But it’s so much more than that. Ole Ray has managed to whip up a batch of Nirvana in a bottle. It starts with blackberry jelly (that’s what I said),  corn syrup, sugar, and fruit pectin. There’s also some tomato puree. Continue Reading

Roadhouse Southern Sunset Bar-B-Que Sauce – This is an absolutely classic bar-b-cue sauce with some additional things going on that give it character beyond the classics. Vinegar, cider vinegar, sugar, tomato puree, molasses, peach juice, onion, apricots, garlic, paprika, lemon juice, salt, cayenne pepper, crushed red peppers, and some extra spices make up the delicate balance of this sauce.

The sauce has a consistency a little shy of thick, which makes it perfect not only as a barbecue sauce, but as a dip or marinade as well. There are pieces of ingredient throughout, which helps provide a cling factor during the cooking process. Continue Reading

Ahrun’s Carolina Mustard BBQ Sauce – This is billed as a barbecue sauce. It’s slightly thin for the purpose, but the taste of the sauce makes up for it.  The ingredients this sauce sports include corn syrup, vinegar, sugar, mustard,  worcestershire sauce, onions, garlic, tamarind, cloves, and chili pepper extract.

Ahrun’s Carolina Mustard BBQ Sauce is a very sweet sauce with a slight bite of fire. It works extremely well on ham and other pork, it’s great on chicken, and it even makes a great addition to seafood. Despite the thin personality of the sauce, if you keep painting it on your food while you’re grilling, it maintains its flavor and finally manages to thicken up a bit.
Continue Reading

Big Bob Gibson Mustard BBQ Sauce – Big Bob Gibson makes some unique award-winning sauces, including Big Bob Gibson Championship Red Sauce and Big Bob Gibson Original White Bar-B-Q Sauce. This one is a mustard-based bar-b-cue sauce and it rocks. Mustard, as an ingredient in sauces, is something I really enjoy when the blending is done well. Big Bob Gibson Mustard BBQ Sauce is an exquisite blending of mustard and other ingredients that creates a sweet, smoky, very rich presentation.
Ingredients here are extensive. Mustard, soy sauce, steak sauce, salt, onions, garlic, orange, orange peel, turmeric, apple concentrate, rye concentrate, tomato paste, molasses, raisin concentrate, tamarind, brown sugar, and a whole bunch of other spices and flavorings that Big Bob uses like paints on a palette to create a masterpiece of bar-be-cue flavor. Continue Reading

Pappy’s Not Made in China barbecue and dipping sauce is made in the USA without lead paint. That’s what the label tells us. Cool. Lead paint isn’t good for you. The good news is, Pappy’s Not Made in China BBQ Sauce is good for you. Pappy’s Moonshine Madness is one of my favorite sauces, and so is Pappy’s Sauce for Sissies. Okay, so I don’t use the sauce for sissies (well, I don’t admit it) as often as I use the Moonshine Madness, but in any case, it’s a fine sauce.

Not Made in China BBQ Sauce is billed as a barbecue and dipping sauce. Soy sauce, sugar, molasses, fresh garlic, fresh onion, salt, smoke flavor, hot sauce, tomato paste, worcestershire sauce, anchovies, and all those other ingredients typical of Pappy’s sauce are in this mix. Continue Reading

Jolokia BBQ Sauce – This BBQ sauce has been a long time coming. This is a barbecue sauce and, as such, great in barbecue applications, but it’s also a great replacement for whatever sauce you use on your hot wings. I got excited when I saw the bottle. BBQ sauce made with Naga Jolokia. I’ve never seen it before. The thought of getting this sauce on chicken wings was like waking up Christmas morning to presents spread around the tree and piled high beneath it too. I went to the freezer to find I had no chicken wings left. That meant a quick trip to the store, a chicken wing purchase, and rushing back home to fire up a grill specifically for wings, specifically with Jolokia BBQ Sauce.

Everybody knew this was going to be a hot sauce. Most people asked to be left out of it. Continue Reading

Black Swan BBQ Sauce – Black Swan makes Black Swan Sweet Cognac Sauce and Marinade and Black Swan Wing Commander, both of which are excellent sauces in their own right. Black Swan sauces are made with natural, fresh ingredients and it shows in the exquisite flavor infused in these well-crafted sauces.

Black Swan original BBQ sauce, which is the topic of this little review, is a traditional BBQ sauce with no special effects. That doesn’t take away from the excellent taste factor and this sauce’s ability to turn any barbecue into an event. Continue Reading

Duke’s Roadhouse BBQ Sauce – New York might not be the place you think of when you think of barbecue. Guess what? If Duke’s New York Style Roadhouse BBQ Sauce is any indication of what barbecue sauce is like in New York, bring it on. That’s all I can say.

There’s pineapple juice, pepper sauce, Worcestershire sauce, cane juice, vinegar onions, corn sweetener, anchovies, orange juice, liquid smoke, garlic, black pepper, and some assorted spices. This is top of the line stuff that looks and tastes good on ribs, steaks, pork, fish, and shrimp. I found it particularly friendly to the shrimp, grilled up on a barbecue pit on a fine summer’s day. I skewered the shrimp on a kabob with some roasted red peppers, sweet onion, and beef chunks. Everybody in the family thought it was one of the best eating experiences they’d ever had. Continue Reading

Jim Beam Barbecue Sauce – I was looking for the proof information on this bottle, when I saw the following in small type on the back label: “This is a non-alcoholic product (contains less than 0.02% alcohol by volume.” I couldn’t believe it, because when I tasted this sauce I went “Oooh weee!” And if you know me (which you don’t), that’s what I say when I throw back a good belt of bourbon. Jim Beam Barbecue Sauce may not have a lot of Jim Beam bourbon in it, but it does manage to retain a lot of Jim Beam flavor.

Taken overall, aside from the bourbon the ingredients are in line with most commercial barbecue sauces. What’s different is that tomato paste isn’t the lead ingredient; in fact, it’s the fifth. Ahead of that comes water, vinegar, sugar, and molasses. Continue Reading

Quaker Steak & Lube Louisiana Lickers Sauce – You don’t know me, but I’m a big guy and I like big flavors. When I first saw Quaker Steak & Lube Louisiana Lickers Sauce, I liked it for two reasons: it has a big name and it comes in a big bottle. Then I saw on the label that the sauce won some Best Wings USA competition. I was intrigued, but wings aren’t big enough for me, so I decided I would make some buffalo drumsticks.

Now, for classic buffalo wings, you want to mix your cayenne hot sauce with butter. Louisiana Lickers takes care of that for you. Actually, it’s margarine, but it’s still surprising to find that as a hot sauce ingredient. Continue Reading

Maker’s Mark Gourmet BBQ Sauce – In the interest of full disclosure, I have to point out that I am a big-time fan of Maker’s Mark bourbon. It’s my first-choice drink in a bar or restaurant, and I buy it frequently. For whatever reason, though, I hadn’t tried Maker’s Mark Gourmet Sauce before. Well, now that I have, I’m more in love with the Maker’s Mark brand than ever before.

If you appreciate Maker’s Mark, you’ll definitely appreciate the Maker’s Mark Gourmet BBQ Sauce bottle. It’s the same distinctive shape as the bourbon, and is sealed with the trademark red wax that makes even opening the bottle a happy ritual. But the real fun – with both the bourbon and the Gourmet Sauce – happens once the bottle is opened.
Continue Reading

Pappy’s XXX White Lightnin’ BBQ Sauce – I’ve tried Pappy’s Moonshine Madness (one of my hands-down all-time favorite barbecue sauces ever, and that’s the truth) and even Pappy’s Sauce for Sissies (though I’d rather not spread that around), and both of those sauces are exquisite in their construction. Even the sissy sauce serves its purpose. When I saw Pappy’s XXX White Lightnin, I knew I was going to have to give it a try. As expected, it doesn’t have the butt-kicking glory of Moonshine Madness, but it’s a notch or two above Sauce for Sissies.

As with all Pappy’s sauces, this one is loaded to the gills with ingredients. There’s chiles, tomato, garlic, onion Worcestershire sauce, a little booze, and a whole bunch of other goodies in here I won’t bother detailing. Continue Reading

Habanero BBQ Sauce from Hell -  I am a big fan of barbecue sauce, but only if the barbecue sauce in questions brings something to the table. Habanero BBQ Sauce from Helll does just that. The label says beyond hot, and while that isn’t exactly the case, this sauce does pack a healthy dose of heat that will please any sauce lover who needs to feel the burn.

I started with hamburgers on the grill. I wanted to keep it simple and work on getting the feel for this sauce. The ingredients include tomato paste, sugar, molasses, vinegar, onion, soy sauce, green chiles, salt, habaneros, garlic, and liquid hickory smoke. Continue Reading

Obama’s Health Care BBQ Sauce – My family and I are barbecue junkies. It’s a fact of life. We have a two-level deck and four barbecue pits. When we barbecue, we feed the family, friends, and friends of friends. We typically employ several barbecue sauces at one time, sometimes together, and in the case of sauce  that stand on their own, single sauces. This is why Summer in Georgia is so fine.

Obama’s Health Care BBQ Sauce contains some surprising, and very well-used, ingredients. There’s ketchup, honey, mustard, molasses, chipotle peppers, red wine vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, onions, brown sugar, liquid smoke, hot sauce, garlic, and some assorted spices. Continue Reading

Corky’s Barbecue Sauce – There’s nothing about this sauce that lifts it off the map and sets it in a world of its own, but there’s nothing about the sauce that makes it a bland I-can-do-without sauce either. There is some value to Corky’s barbecue sauce. To start with, it’s got awesome flavor. It’s a traditional down-home Memphis-style barbecue sauce that does wonders for ribs and steaks and anything else you cook on the grill. The balance of the sauce makes it a winner on its own, but it leaves room for your own creative touches. If there are ingredients you like to add to your sauces, Corky’s Barbecue Sauce makes a great base sauce to work with.

Cayenne peppers, molasses, Worcestershire, onions and garlic, natural smoke flavor, tamarind, tomato paste, and corn syrup provide the flavor foundation here. Throw in a few spices and that’s the extent of the sauce’s ingredients. Continue Reading

Fighting Cock Barbecue Sauce – This one is made with a bourbon base. Bourbon is an alcohol that seems to have been made for barbecue sauce. It adds a smoothness to the mix that delivers on flavor. Fighting Cock Kentucky Bourbon Barbecue Sauce is bourbon-based barbecue sauce at the top of the heap.

Tomato sauce, hot sauce, garlic, onions, chili peppers, Worcestershire sauce, molasses, black pepper, anchovies, lemon powder, lemon oil, lemon juice, smoke flavoring, and habenero peppers all work with the smooth bourbon to create a barbecue sauce that will smack you upside the head.

Hot (the pepper additions see to that) and smoky, with a pleasing aftermath that will have you coming back for more. Continue Reading

Cowtown Barbecue Sauce – What isn’t good about Kansas City’s Cowtown BBQ sauce? My father-in-law is from Texas. He knows about barbecue and he has very specific tastes. He will not eat barbecue that doesn’t live up to a reputation as big as the state of Texas itself.

Everybody (or at least those who know barbecue) knows that Kansas City is a big barbecue city – big enough to compete with Texas. This barbecue sauce has what it takes to handle the competition, even when a Texan is doing the judging.

The ingredients here read like a who’s who of Kansas City barbecue flavors. There’s Ketchup, white vinegar, brown sugar Worcestershire Sauce, ground mustard, black pepper, garlic, onions, and some cayenne to give it a little life. Continue Reading