Barbecue Sauces, Spice Rubs, Steak Sauces, And More: Buying Guide, Reviews, And Ratings To The Classic Regional Styles

Mexican Style

El Gringo Mexican Barbeque Fusion (Warrenville, IL). Another winner from the creative kitchen of Chef Rick Kazdan. As is his style, it is rich, thick and complex, and although it comes from a Chicago burb, it tastes Mexican. There's molasses, honey, tamarind, chopped garlic, vinegar, chipotles in adobo, and other goodies held together by ketchup and tomato paste. It is a great balance of sweet and tart and hot. Try it on ribs, chicken, or anything else on which you'd put a tomato based barbecue sauce.

El Gringo Loco Sweet Island Heat (Warrenville, IL). Rick Kazdan calls his enterprise a "micro salsaria" because it is small, and his sauces are handcrafted, like a micro brewery. I'll buy that. At the moment he sells them mostly online and at farmer's markets around Chicago. I'm hoping he can grow beyond that. Sweet Island Heat is made in the tropical islands just west of Chicago, but one taste and you'd swear you were in Jamaica, mon. It is amber in color, thick as jam, chunky, flecked with herbs and spices, and shiny. It's really a chutney in my book. Ginger jumps out as soon as you open the jar, and when you get it in your mouth it explodes with tropical flavors like pineapple, orange, mango, and garlic, underpinned by a decent but not overbearing kick from jerk seasoning, chili sauce, and habanero puree. The ingredient list says there's also apple juice, grape juice, onion, and even banana. I like it as a dipping sauce for anything fried, especially chicken, fish, or samosas. Lately I've been dipping pretzel rods in the convenient wide mouth jar.

Black Swan Beso del Fuego. Chile peppers dominate the flavor of this thick rich garnet colored sauce, and there are some significant lumps floating around in there, but surprisingly it is not that hot. Yes, there is is a spiciness, it builds slowly and gradually in the back of the palate. Just right for someone like me who likes heat, but not pain.

Other Fun Sauces

Dreamland Bar-B-Que Sauce (Tuscaloosa, AL).

In 1958, John "Big Daddy" Bishop opened the Dreamland Café in Tuscaloosa, AL, the same year legendary football Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant arrived in Tuscaloosa. The ribs ascended to legendary, cooked fast but cooled with their thin flavorful sauce. The base is mostly vinegar and water, rounded out with tomato paste and mustard so it is a pale runny orange color that penetrates the meat and doesn't just squat on it. The taste is tangy, tart, with a noticeable hot pepper spice that lingers looooonnng. It is more like a Lexington Dip than anything else. Not everyone will like this one, but I love it.

Buz and Ned's Rib & Chicken Glaze (Richmond, VA). This place has cred. Buz himself whupped Bobby Flay in a ribs throwdown on FoodTV. So I had high hopes when I tasted his barbecue sauces. Sadly, I was a bit disappointed at first. The Real Barbecue Sauce was very good, but didn't bowl me over. The Glaze intrigued me because it was a dark garnet, ultra thick and rich, grainy with spices, but some how it did not send me. Perhaps because it was so tomatoey and that made it different than my expectations. Then one night we were making a meatloaf and there wasn't enough time to make a glaze. So I grabbed Buz And Ned's Glaze, and boy did it blow me away.

I have come to a conclusion about this stuff, and Buz is not gonna like hearing this, but it is the world's best ketchup. By far. Ketchup is tomato paste with vinegar, herbs, spices, and sweetener. Tomato-based barbecue sauce is usually ketchup with more of the same. So really, Kansas City style sauces are just amped up ketchups. The big diff is that ketchup is tomatoey, and barbecue sauce is less so. Well this stuff is tomatoey, and it is incredible on burgers, fries, meatloaf, and everything I love ketchup on.

Johnny V's Barbecue Sauce (Chicago, IL). Made in a Chicago suburb by Johnny Vogel (he is not connected to the popular Ft. Lauderdale restaurant named Johnny V's), this shiny, thick brown sauce has a dominant flavor: G-A-R-L-I-C. It is rich, strong, smoky, and even has clumps of garlic floating in it. A bit salty, there is a nice black pepper tang in the background and a looooonnnnng garlicky finish. Here's something I've never seen before: One of the ingredients is sweet potato! Did I mention there is a strong garlic aroma? Let's call it KC style with an Italian accent. I like it on burgers as well as my ribs. It is sold only in stores around Chicago.

Whiskey Sauces

Dr. Dan's BBQ Sauce Magical Meat Elixir, Kentucky Bourbon (Springfield, OH). Dr. Dan has made this boozy brown, medium-thick elixir by starting with his very rich and nuanced "Original Formula" sauce and adding extract of Bourbon (sorry, there's no alcohol in it, so it's safe for the kiddies). Try it on beef brisket or venison.

Black Swan Sweet Cognac Sauce & Marinade (Dundee, IL). I was not only impressed with this sauce, I was impressed with the guy who made it, Max Good, so much that I hired him. Max is now the Director of the AmazingRibs.com Buyer's Guides.

This fine sauce has a nice garnet/orange color with small black flecks, probably black pepper. The Cognac is so well integrated into the complex flavor that it is not an obvious component. Garlic and an orange flavor do stand out a bit, and I like that. It is more from the Kansas City sauce style mold than anything else. Black Swan is distributed in the US, Brazil, and the EU. Take note: Max makes the same sauce with cane sugar instead of HFCS. They taste different and I prefer the HFCS version.

Charlie Trotter's Organic Thai Barbecue Sauce (Chicago, IL). Forget everything you know about barbecue sauce. The great iconoclast chef has crafted this sweet, raisiny, citrusy sauce with sesame oil undertones and only a hint of heat for fish. Exquisite. Known for crafting unusual combinations of flavor, Trotter is often listed as one of the 10 greatest chefs in the nation and his Chicago restaurant is booked months in advance. Now you can bring a taste of Trotter to your next cookout.

Fruit Based Sauces

Ole Ray's Blackberry Wine Barbecue & Cooking Sauce (St. Augustine, FL). A thick dark brown glop whose fruity flavor from blackberry jelly and wine has multiple dimensions from smoke flavor, a mild pepper kick, and good crisp acidity from vinegar and lemon juice. This is not a novelty sauce. It has real richness and depth. I am also a big fan of the Ole Ray's Apple/Cinnamon Barbeque Sauce, a KC style red sauce with a distinct apple note and a long layered heat in the finish.

Chicago Sauce

Pig Chaser BBQ Sauce with Real Bacon (Grayslake, IL). I'm really stretching it by saying there is a Chicago style because there really isn't. If anything, many of the best of the Chicago sauces are garlicy derivitives of the Kansas City Style. But in the town that Carl Sandburg called "Hog Butcher to the World" this one poerfectly appropriate. This is the first, and to my knowledge, the only sauce to be allowed by USDA to have real bacon in the recipe. A dark brownish, very thick sauce with many dark bacon chunks swimming in solution. When you open it you smell bacon instantly, and that follows through to the taste. The owner has spared no expense including honey, pineapple juice, red wine vinegar, molasses, butter, and even maple syrup.

Sweet Glaze

Blues Hog Barbecue Sauce (Perry, MO). A thoroughly creative and unusual sauce from the middle of nowhere in Perry, Missouri. Bill Arnold has crafted this intriguing sauce from practically every herb and spice on his rack. Garnet colored, runny at room temp and thick from the fridge, it is laden with flecks of black pepper, green herbs, mustard seeds, chile peppers, a generous hit of cumin, and all manner of edible grit. Actually more of a glaze, it varnishes your meat with a glossy sheen and deep sea complexity. A bit too sweet (brown sugar is the first item on the ingredients list), it is not unctuous because there are layers of red pepper heat, black pepper bite, nutty garlic, and grassy herbaceousness. It made my ribs sing, and try as I might, I have been unable to duplicate it. One word or warning: Because it is so sweet, use only one layer. Multiple coats is too much. The best source for Blues Hog products is Hawgeyes BBQ in Ankeny, Iowa. By the way, Hawgeyes is also a great source for other hard to find sauces, rubs, cookers, and all things barbecue. In 2007 it won top prize at the American Royal Sauce Championship in Kansas City.

California Sauces

SFQ - The Original San Francisco Style Barbecue Sauce. First of all we need to make this clear: There is no such thing as a traditional California style barbecue sauce. While I have tried to focus this page on the classic sauce styles, I just could not resist adding this one because, if there is anything classic about California cooking and food, it is creativity, and this is one of the most creative, interesting, unique sauces I've ever tasted. But it has tried to remain true to its roots with a great blend of flavors that just shout "California".

Dark garnet in color, thick, and smooth, the first thing in the mouth is the chocolate and coffee (yes, they are in the blend) followed by a slow, steady march of chile heat, probably chipotle playing the horn with ancho on the base fiddle. The main ingredient is organic (of course) tomato paste, the sweetness is molasses (no high fructose corn syrup, the label proudly brags), and it is not syrupy sweet, and the acid is oak-aged wine vinegar (what else whould it be?). My only complaint is that it comes in an 8 ounce jelly jar, enough for a slab of ribs and not much more. 6 jars cost $29.95 plus $12.50 shipping.

Kansas City Style BBQ Sauce

South Carolina Yellow Mustard BBQ Sauce

East Carolina Mop & Sauce

Lexington Mop & Sauce

Alabama White Sauce

Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q Original White Sauce (Decatur, AL). This is not what everyone thinks of when they think of barbecue sauce. It is white, first of all. And it is not sweet. It almost like a salad dressing and it is especially formulated for smoked chicken. Mayonnaise dominates, followed by mustard, black pepper, and vinegar. Not everyone likes it. But it's a classic and worth a try if you love barbecue. If you don't like it on chicken, it's just fine on coleslaw.

Texas Mop Sauces

Cooper's BBQ Sauce (Llano, TX). The best Texas barbecue sauce is a puzzlement. It is made to complement beef brisket. It is at all not sweet, it is thin, more like a gravy or a thin tomato soup than a sauce, heavily spiked with vinegary tartness, a splash of hot sauce, and probably flavored with chili or ancho powder, black pepper, cumin, onion, and garlic. It easily penetrates the meat rather than sitting on top.

The problem is that the stuff in the bottle is nothing like the stuff you get served at the pit. The picture here shows the sauce bucket at Cooper's sitting on the pit where they hold meats for customers to select. They start by dumping their bottled sauce in the bucket in the morning, and as the day goes by, the trimmings go in, and if you want sauce on your meat, it is dunked in the bucket. Before long it tastes a LOT different than the bottled stuff. Doesn't that look good enough to jump in to? So don't expect bottled Texas sauces to taste at all like this because they don't have the trimmings and drippings. Now there are plenty of good sauces in Texas, among my faves are those by Texas Rib Rangers recommended elsewhere on this page, but they are really more Kansas City style than Texas style.

To come close to the real deal, you could blend a good beef stock with the bottled sauce, or perhaps some drippings from a roast beef. You can come close by starting from scratch with my Texas BBQ Juice recipe.

To make things worse, Cooper's has a minimum purchase on their website so you just can't order a bottle. If you're tempted, add a brisket onto your order.

Lone Star Texas Style BBQ Sauce. Garnet color, thick, smooth, not too sweet, complex, tastes like it has liquid smoke, but it is not on the ingredient list and producer swears it is not in there. Complex with Texas flavors including chili cumin, black pepper, and beer! Mild warm heat in the finish.