I just happened to come across this, and it's all true. Most of the store-bought BBQ sauces are not real, even the famous names.
I used to be in competition, and I made my own sauces like most others. A true BBQ sauce is supposed to bring out the real flavors of the BBQ, not sugarcoat them with fake flavors. The real stuff is brown sugar, honey, molasses, peppers, etc. Nowhere is there corn syrup, when that is the first thing on the back of the bottle, forget it. Even Suger Baby Ray's is NOT the same thing that Ray first came out with and on top of that Ray is not his real name. Take it this way, people win several awards in competition for both their BBQ and their sauce. They start to become well-known and get a license to bottle and sell their sauce. They do good with it but are still stuck "locally" because they have limited funds. A large corporation likes it and buys them out, sometimes that requires the name AND the likeness of the person (truth is 90% of them are also fake made-up people). They now own and make it but if they make it 100% like the original, they would never make enough profit. What saves them is cheap corn syrup and chemicals. By the time they are done it's nothing like the original sauce but the first people that made it signed a contract so they can't say anything bad but HAVE to help push it.
Think about this. You see a sauce that has "smoke flavor", they did NOT make a 1,000 gal tank and put ot in a BBQ pit for 24 hours, nope, not happening. They added a cheap chemical called liquid smoke. Oh find a good sauce with "real honey"? Go ahead and buy a bottle. Set it on a table and do NOT move it for 2-3 months. Honey is like gold, they work their way to the bottom. Now go check your newbottle. If there is no honey or so little you can't see it than it fake chemical honey favored.
At the LBL campouts, I used to talk about this with Stretch all the time. He agreed with me and we both exchanged recipes. At every one of the cookouts I made my own sauces and asked everybody to try them and tell me what they liked and did not like and why. I don't do this competition anymore. just family and friends if that.
Summer is coming up so get out there and try some real sauces, you WILL taste the difference. Better yet, start making your own and keep trying until you find one you all like.
I used to be in competition, and I made my own sauces like most others. A true BBQ sauce is supposed to bring out the real flavors of the BBQ, not sugarcoat them with fake flavors. The real stuff is brown sugar, honey, molasses, peppers, etc. Nowhere is there corn syrup, when that is the first thing on the back of the bottle, forget it. Even Suger Baby Ray's is NOT the same thing that Ray first came out with and on top of that Ray is not his real name. Take it this way, people win several awards in competition for both their BBQ and their sauce. They start to become well-known and get a license to bottle and sell their sauce. They do good with it but are still stuck "locally" because they have limited funds. A large corporation likes it and buys them out, sometimes that requires the name AND the likeness of the person (truth is 90% of them are also fake made-up people). They now own and make it but if they make it 100% like the original, they would never make enough profit. What saves them is cheap corn syrup and chemicals. By the time they are done it's nothing like the original sauce but the first people that made it signed a contract so they can't say anything bad but HAVE to help push it.
Think about this. You see a sauce that has "smoke flavor", they did NOT make a 1,000 gal tank and put ot in a BBQ pit for 24 hours, nope, not happening. They added a cheap chemical called liquid smoke. Oh find a good sauce with "real honey"? Go ahead and buy a bottle. Set it on a table and do NOT move it for 2-3 months. Honey is like gold, they work their way to the bottom. Now go check your newbottle. If there is no honey or so little you can't see it than it fake chemical honey favored.
At the LBL campouts, I used to talk about this with Stretch all the time. He agreed with me and we both exchanged recipes. At every one of the cookouts I made my own sauces and asked everybody to try them and tell me what they liked and did not like and why. I don't do this competition anymore. just family and friends if that.
Summer is coming up so get out there and try some real sauces, you WILL taste the difference. Better yet, start making your own and keep trying until you find one you all like.
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