The barbecue sauce category is filled with local varieties, often developed from home recipes or by local barbecue pit masters and sold by their restaurants and in local specialty stores. Barbecue sauce styles vary tremendously from region to region, from the Carolinas to Texas, and increasingly include some internationally influenced recipes. SFA News Daily asked four retail buyers to name their category favorites.
Ellie Straub, director of non-perishable procurement and merchandising, Straub's Fine Grocers, St. Louis, Missouri
• Andria's Steak Sauce
• Blues Hog BBQ Sauce (I mix the Original with the Tennessee Red sauce, and it is a killer combo!)
• Lillie's Q Carolina Barbeque Sauce
• Sugarfire Smoke House St. Louie Sweet BBQ Sauce
"Sugarfire Smoke House St. Louie Sweet BBQ Sauce is Straub's bestselling strictly barbecue sauce, and it comes from an amazing local restaurant," said Straub. "Blues Hog is my personal favorite and a Straub's kitchen favorite as well, as we pair it with a lot of our in-house smoker items."
Lucas Britton, co-buyer, Monsieur Marcel Gourmet Market, Los Angeles
• Tracklements Sticky Barbecue Sauce
• Vania's Gogo Sauce
“It's kind of left field in my mind to have an English BBQ sauce, but we have a product from Tracklements called Sticky Barbecue Sauce, and it's by far one of my favorite barbecue sauces that we carry," said Britton. "It's thick, tangy, it's sweet — they call it “sticky,” and that's the perfect word for it. It's stick-to-your-ribs, quality stuff. Vania's Gogo Sauce is a Korean-inspired, gochujang base, made with clean ingredients by a local couple that started in farmers' markets, built from family recipes. It's not too sweet, and not too spicy, with a toasted sesame flavor. As a Korean-inspired sweet-and-spicy sauce, of course it's great on noodle dishes and stir-fry dishes, but I regularly do a barbecue chicken wing with this sauce, and it's just out of this world.”
Mike Belen, category manager, hot foods, Jungle Jim's International Market
• Gates Original Bar-B-Q Sauce (I like the Extra Hot)
• Lillie's Q Carolina Barbeque Sauce
• Mikey V's Burnt Ends Alabama White Sauce
• Red State BBQ Texas Spicy
• The Roasterie Cof-Fee-Que Sauce
• Stubb's Dr Pepper Legendary Bar-B-Q Sauce
“For Mikey V's Burnt Ends, he took a typical Alabama white sauce and bumped it up by throwing some peppers in there," said Belen. "Alabama white normally has no heat, but this one is a ‘10' on a scale of 1-10. We also just brought in Duke's new line of barbecue sauces. They are known for their mayonnaise, but they introduced a line of barbecue sauces during the pandemic, and they've been top-notch.”
Don Cary, owner, All Things BBQ, Wichita, Kansas
• Big Rick's Original BBQ Sauce
• Firebug Mild BBQ Sauce
• House of Q Slow Smoked Gold
• Plowboy's Sweet 180 BBQ Sauce
• Smoke On Wheels Bourbon Bootleg BBQ Sauce
Related: Buyers' Picks: Holiday Entertaining; Buyers' Picks: Baked Goods.