commercially, rather than in BBQ competitions: the Rufus Teague BBQ sauces. There are 5 in the range: Honey Sweet, Whiskey Maple, Touch o’ Heat, Blazin’ Hot and Apple Mash. The names are pretty indicative of the flavour profiles, though not necessarily the heat profiles (see my comments below).
However, two of them deserve special mention: the flavour profile of Rufus Teague ‘Whiskey Maple’ BBQ Sauce is unusual and really good, but my absolute favourite is Rufus Teague ‘Apple Mash’ BBQ Sauce, especially on pulled pork. I describe it as ‘liquid Dutch Apple Pie’ – for those of you who don’t know, Dutch Apple Pie is heavy on cinnamon and other similar spices, like nutmeg.
When serving pulled pork, I slow cook the pork with a good coating of Oakridge BBQ ‘Dominator’ Sweet Rib Rub (which has a hefty kick of Vietnamese cinnamon), then shred the meat and add another sprinkling of ‘Dominator’ (which liquefies into the meat), before serving it with Rufus Teague ‘Apple Mash’ BBQ Sauce on the side (see my comments at the start of this article). I really love it and so have all my dinner guests to date.
One last thing: please don’t force your guests to have BBQ sauce on their meat. I always like to offer BBQ sauce on the side so people can add as much, or as little, as they like. To me, as a guest, it almost feels a bit rude to cover well barbecued meat in BBQ sauce before I have had a chance to at least taste the meat – it’s almost like someone putting lots of salt on their meal before they have even had a bite to find out if any is needed. Time to get off my pulpit for this issue…
So, I think that is enough for now. It’s nearly midnight and time for my ugly sleep.
Enjoy your BBQ!!
Richard
P. S. As a final thought, I sometimes think the Americans can be wimps when it comes to their description of ‘hot’ rubs and sauces.
Of course, they also produce some seriously hot products with astronomically high Scoville numbers, but many of the BBQ rub and sauce products they describe as ‘hot’ would just be described as ‘pleasantly warm’ or having ‘a slight kick’ here in the UK.
Maybe it’s our heritage of eating curries, or the wide availability of really hot chilli sauces? Regardless, I think it puts a lot of people here in the UK off trying any BBQ rub or sauce that includes ‘Hot’ in the title, and that is a real shame in my view because they miss out on some really good stuff.
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