Your favorite bottled BBQ sauce?

Im not as big on the sauce as others for instance I prefer sauce on the side and maybe a lite dip with every other piece of smoked meat I consume. But that doesnt mean I don't love BBQ sauce, I dont like ketchup so I may use it as a dip for fries and I love grilled chicken tossed in BBQ sauce after coming off the grill.

Open pit is an essential in my pantry, I absolutely love it with chicken and it is my favorite brand that seems to be readily available so I use it often. OP is a must for my "spicy BBQ bacon wrapped scrimp" and charcoal grilled BBQ wings. Usually ill kick it up a bit and add chopped onions and an assortment of peppers with a little more seasoning added.

My favorite local brand available at places like Strack & Van til is LTH poster's BuddyRoadhouse' BBQ sauce. I love the original and find it perfect for my meatloafs and BBQ burgers.

When I get the chance my favorite bottled sauce is "Johnson's southern style BBQ sauce" made and bottled by Rupert Johnson down in Harrisburg, IL. I have tried alot of sauce in my time and after being introduced to this by a friend who does work down south I am now hooked for life. It has the perfect amount of kick for me (a little extra) and works so well with both chicken and pork and works great on my egg's, burgers and even a BBQ slaw dog I made turned out great. Anyone else tried this stuff? Whats your go to sauce?



Rupert Johnson
700 e. Walnut
Harrisburg, IL 62946
(618) 252-0477
http://www.johnsonsbbq.com/

Arthur Bryant's Original or Arthur Bryant's Sweet Heat. The 2 mixed together is killer.

I always have a bottle of Bryants original and a bottle of Gates on hand.

I actually think Sweet Baby Ray's is quite good, too.

Da Beef wrote:Im not as big on the sauce as others for instance I prefer sauce on the side and maybe a lite dip with every other piece of smoked meat I consume. But that doesnt mean I don't love BBQ sauce, I dont like ketchup so I may use it as a dip for fries and I love grilled chicken tossed in BBQ sauce after coming off the grill.

Open pit is an essential in my pantry, I absolutely love it with chicken and it is my favorite brand that seems to be readily available so I use it often. OP is a must for my "spicy BBQ bacon wrapped scrimp" and charcoal grilled BBQ wings. Usually ill kick it up a bit and add chopped onions and an assortment of peppers with a little more seasoning added.

My favorite local brand available at places like Strack & Van til is LTH poster's BuddyRoadhouse' BBQ sauce. I love the original and find it perfect for my meatloafs and BBQ burgers.

When I get the chance my favorite bottled sauce is "Johnson's southern style BBQ sauce" made and bottled by Rupert Johnson down in Harrisburg, IL. I have tried alot of sauce in my time and after being introduced to this by a friend who does work down south I am now hooked for life. It has the perfect amount of kick for me (a little extra) and works so well with both chicken and pork and works great on my egg's, burgers and even a BBQ slaw dog I made turned out great. Anyone else tried this stuff? Whats your go to sauce?



Rupert Johnson
700 e. Walnut
Harrisburg, IL 62946
(618) 252-0477
http://www.johnsonsbbq.com/

Yes!! We love Johnson's BBQ sauce at my house. I first had it when a co-worker smoked a pork shoulder and brought it to work to share. He offered several sauces to go with it, Johnson's was one of them. It was love at first bite for me.

I really like buying from small family operations. I ordered a case of the sauce on-line and Rupert Johnson himself called me because of a problem with my credit card (I had transposed two of the numbers) and he couldn't have been any nicer....after figuring out the problem with the card we chatted for a few minutes about the weather.

Does the Johnson's contain high fructose corn syrup? Science Boy saw a documentary on the stuff a little while back, so we're reading labels and trying to avoid it where possible. Barbecue sauce has been hard to come by since then! We've been getting Bull's-Eye Orignial - it's not fabulous, but it doesn't have HFCS, either. I'd *love* to buy locally made stuff if it's HFCS free!

bluroses wrote:Does the Johnson's contain high fructose corn syrup?

according to the bottle it contains: water, tomato puree, corn syrup, vinegar, red pepper, black pepper, salt, turmeric, corn starch and other herbs and spices.

Woo-hoo! If they have it at Strack & Van Til's, perchance I will get a bottle Saturday! (as soon as I check with Science Boy to be sure he's still cool with regular corn syrup...)

Im not sure you'll find it at S&VT. I got it from a friend who works down there and sent another friend with a few bottles of it back for me. They do ship right to your door though.

Ooh... I misread the first post in this thread. Buddy's RoadHouse is the one at SVT. Well, guess I'll hafta place an order, then!

Our sauces are free of HFCS as well. There is a tiny amount of regular corn syrup in there, but no HFCS. The corn syrup in our sauces acts as a binder rather than a sweetener. Further, the amount of corn syrup is less than 1% of the whole recipe.

The primary sweeteners in our tomato based sauces are pineapple, raisin, and just enough sugar to bring out the natural sweetness of the fruit. We use peach juice and dried apricots in our vinegar based southern style sauce. There is no corn syrup of any kind in our southern sauce.

Buddy

BuddyRoadhouse wrote:Our sauces are free of HFCS as well. There is a tiny amount of regular corn syrup in there, but no HFCS. The corn syrup in our sauces acts as a binder rather than a sweetener. Further, the amount of corn syrup is less than 1% of the whole recipe.

The primary sweeteners in our tomato based sauces are pineapple, raisin, and just enough sugar to bring out the natural sweetness of the fruit. We use peach juice and dried apricots in our vinegar based southern style sauce. There is no corn syrup of any kind in our southern sauce.

Buddy

Thanks for the info, Buddy. I will definitely try yours first from SVT this weekend. I would really love to support someone local who doesn't use HFCS!

(I just saw that I'd have to order 12 bottles of Johnson's sauce - as delicious as it may be, Science Boy and I would have a heck of a time getting through that much sauce, let alone finding a place to stash it!)

Buddy:

I did buy a bottle of your sauce the weekend after I last posted. I *love* it! It's a teensy bit spicy for Science Boy, but that's okay. More for me! This will definitely be a staple in our home.

katharine

I can't tell you my favorite.....but I can tell you that this is the absolute worst BBQ sauce I have ever had:

Open Pit Thick and Sweet Brown Sugar and Bourbon BBQ Sauce

Don't say you hadn't been warned!!!

Jerry D wrote:I can't tell you my favorite.....but I can tell you that this is the absolute worst BBQ sauce I have ever had:

Open Pit Thick and Sweet Brown Sugar and Bourbon BBQ Sauce

Don't say you hadn't been warned!!!

One man's worst, another man's best? Although I don't think anyone ranks that one high.

http://www.bbqsaucereviews.com/
http://www.bbqsuperstars.com/top-100-ra ... the-world/
http://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/bes ... bull-s-eye
http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/06/tast ... sauce.html
http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-pr ... bbq-sauce/?

thetrob wrote:

Jerry D wrote:I can't tell you my favorite.....but I can tell you that this is the absolute worst BBQ sauce I have ever had:

Open Pit Thick and Sweet Brown Sugar and Bourbon BBQ Sauce

Don't say you hadn't been warned!!!

One man's worst, another man's best? Although I don't think anyone ranks that one high.

http://www.bbqsaucereviews.com/
http://www.bbqsuperstars.com/top-100-ra ... the-world/
http://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/bes ... bull-s-eye
http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/06/tast ... sauce.html
http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-pr ... bbq-sauce/?

I am not over the top picky, although some sauces are too sweet for my taste.

I would challenge anyone to say they preferred this sauce to just about any challenger. It is disgusting. A term that I do not throw around to often.

Check this out:
http://www.amazon.com/Thick-Sweet-Brown ... B008GQQKEA

We always have several barbecue sauces around. Our "daily" bbq sauce is Sweet Baby Ray's (any of several varieties); we make sure we never run out of Sweet Baby Ray's. We almost always have (regular original) Open Pit on hand too.

I've brought back Sticky Fingers sauces from work trips to North Carolina. Go through the Memphis style fastest, Carolina mustard style tends to accumulate. Can't remember right now what the third style is, so obviously it's not a favorite. I've seen Sticky Fingers in local stores recently. I don't need any more Sticky Fingers for a while.

A relative who lived in and still visits Kansas City and now lives in Texas stocks us up on sauces from both of those places, along with KC and Texas steak and rib dry rubs, as well as more unusual (to this Midwesterner) things like vinegar and white lightning dipping sauces. It's fun trying them all out.

I miss Maul's from when I lived in Champaign, so I buy those whenever I see them in a downstate store.

But my personal hands-down runaway favorite is Big John's Ol' West BBQ and Dippin Sauce from Mellette, South Dakota. I am down to my last half bottle and am doling it out sparingly. I would gladly reimburse and reward any LTHer who travelled to South Dakota and was willing to bring me back a box of the stuff.

Personally, my favorite BBQ sauce is Show-Me Sauce, developed by the late Harry Berrier, an assistant professor of clinical pathology and toxicology at the University of Missouri.

http://mizzoumag.missouri.edu/2013/05/t ... -of-sauce/

It is a family operation and they produce 15,000 gallons a year in their basement in Columbia, MO.

If you are near either of the Blackwood BBQ restaurants downtown, they sell all their sauces - but the Chicago sauce (imo) rocks them all. Sweet Baby Rays was always the staple in our house - as we continually tried whatever the local grocer brought in to find a replacement - but nothing ever hit all the buds....until now. We are on our 6th or so bottle and have given up the experimentation for anything new.

I've never gone crazy and tried dozens of BBQ sauces, but my mainstay is Famous Dave's Texas Pit. That's my favorite style of sauce, a little heat, peppery, strong cumin presence, basically southwestern/Texas flavor, and not too thick. I don't want smoky, thick, molasses/sugary stuff like what they give you at most fast food places.

Sally's BBQ on Western near Devon (The original not Sally's Stage), still makes my mouth water.

My favorite sauce you can buy in stores is Stubb's Spicy:


But my absolute favorite commercial sauce ever is from South Street Smokehouse in Lafayette, IN. Their house-made "Mike's Spicy" is my ideal BBQ sauce. Not too thick, just sweet enough, with a nice caramelized tomato base, deep complex spice flavor and heavy black pepper burn. The smoked meats here are frankly not that great but that sauce sure makes up for a lot.

3305 S St
Lafayette, IN 47904

Rub’s Backcountry Smokehouse has four sauces:
Smokey Sweet -- Citrus Chipotle -- Smoked Jalapeño -- Carolina Gold

My preference does not include a “Smokey Sweet” flavor, but the other three are very enjoyable. The Chipotle and Jalapeno, while sweet-ish, have enough heat to make them interesting. The Carolina Gold (mustard-based) is my favorite and it becomes a part of most anything that looks like a Fridge-fest dish or meal.

RBS is very generous with their sauces when you order a ‘mess of Q’ for a crowd. It’s always a treat to have several containers in the back of the fridge.

Rub’s Backcountry Smokehouse
773-675-1410
http://www.backcountryq.com

wolfwood wrote:Sally's BBQ on Western near Devon (The original not Sally's Stage), still makes my mouth water.

My mom was telling me recently that she loved Sally BBQ sauce too. A few months ago she went to the BBQ Pit in Highland Park where they said they served Sally's BBQ original recipe sauce. She said it was nothing like Sally's. Either her memory has really faded or these people think they can call any sauce Sally's and people will believe it.

i recently discovered Melvin's southern red sauce. no HFCS. melvin's restaurants have been going strong since 1939 in charleston. i've never been, i just saw the sauce in a store and bought. it's an orangy color; mildly sweet, tangy and mustardy- though not as mustardy as their 'golden secret', which they claim is the original south carolina mustard BBQ sauce. this is terrific sauce, but i can't remember where i bought it. so if anyone else buys it here, please let me know where i can find it.

Every time I visit family in Greenville, SC I make sure to visit Henry's Smokehouse for a great BBQ meal (chopped pork sandwich and/or some Low Country hash) and grab a couple bottles of their spicy mustard sauce. Probably the best commercial mustard BBQ sauce I've ever had. Now that I think about it I'm really craving it - might have to ask my sister to swing by and pick some up and ship it to me.

I look at the labels, and the ones without Artificial Smoke are few and far between. So far the only one I see regularly on grocery shelves in Chicago is Stubbs.

Katie wrote:Our "daily" bbq sauce is Sweet Baby Ray's (any of several varieties); we make sure we never run out of Sweet Baby Ray's. We almost always have (regular original) Open Pit on hand too.

We like Sweet Baby Ray's Hickory & Brown Sugar sauce but we add some apple cider vinegar to the bottle, really makes a great sauce then.

Does restaurant-bottled sauce count?

When down Near South Suburbia in Hickory Hills, I usually stop by The Pit Rib House for a couple bottles of their tangy sauce, and sometimes their baby-backs as well. Overall, the food is dependable Greek-owned BBQ, very reasonable, but their sauce is a hickory-tinged, vinegary, thin blend that does more than just top whatever you're cooking. It seems to infuse itself into the meat, and truth be told is a better baste than sauce, but either works.

And...how can you not love a place whose slogan is "It's So Good Cooked With Wood".

The Pit Rib House
9430 S. Roberts Rd.
Hickory Hills, IL
(708) 599-7576

http://www.thepitribhouse.com

I came across this stuff at a farmers market in Union Pier, MI recently.



This stuff is made in South Bend and distribution is light; mostly via farmers markets and specialty stores. I haven't seen it anywhere in Chicago yet. It had a very nice chile-forward taste and wasn't sweet at all. It very much reminded me of a sauce that I would make for myself. Although Black Bart resembled a Wicker Park hipster more than his name would suggest, he's deadly serious about his sauce!

Took a chance on Trader Joe's Organic Sriracha and Roasted Garlic BBQ Sauce. Like it a lot.

http://www.traderjoes.com/fearless-flyer/article/2317