I have long been a fan of Lance Anthony of Anthony’s Spices and his awesome line of spices and rubs. Lance came through again, donating some of his sauce and spice for an event recently held by Gateway Outdoors.

I talked to Lance the other day and his business is booming. He’s really looking to expand his retailer network. If you have a gift shop, food shop, heck – if you own a bait shop – contact him. These spices are attractively packaged and make good gifts, souvenirs, and should be a mainstay in the outdoorsman’s kitchen.

I’d like to thank the folks over at Rufus Teague for sending me some of their product to try. First up is their BBQ sauce “A Touch of Heat”.

I gotta tell you – this sauce was an instant hit at my house. I loved it, and my wife went crazy over it. This is a fairly dark, fairly thick sauce. It is very complex, with a bunch of different flavors and notes pinging away at your taste buds, with every bite. Pulled pork was to be the platform for today’s test. As usual, I rubbed my pork butt heavy with a great rub from the guys over at 3 Eyz BBQ the night before, wrapped with cling wrap and left in the fridge. 3 Eyz is a great rub with bold, fresh spices. It makes a great bark and imparts great flavor into the roast.

I use charcoal in my smoker ( a mix of lump and briquettes today) and a couple of mesquite chunks. I put the pork in at kept the smoker perking at about 235 all day, until it hit an internal temperature of 190. I foiled and let rest, and then shredded it. I served with Rufus Teague on the side.

This sauce has a lot of tang, some molasses showing through, and a slight citrusy “zing” lurking in there. As advertised, it does indeed have a “Touch of Heat”. My wife likes her sauce HOT; me, not so much. There was enough to make her happy, but not so much heat to kill a pasty ol Canadian like me.This is one of the best sauces I have tried yet, and I highly recommend it.

According to the site,

“Rufus Teague made some sauce. He put some in a jar and shared it with the boys.They kept on painin’ him ’til he fixed up another batch. Next thing he knew, he’s makin sauce all the time. It’s damn good.”

Specific to this sauce, the site says: “Rufus spiced it up a bit with this one. He always said, “A touch of heat will let you know it’s there”. Trust me, you’ll know the heat is there hangin’ out with all that delicious sweetness. This one’s special.”

One last thing – they have some cool marketing going on. Bottled in a nifty flask, and Rufus Teague looks like a dude with character. Well done, all around.

Friend of the site Brian Henderson does a great job reviewing sauces over at BBQ Sauce Reviews. If you’re looking for thorough reviews on some pretty cool products, visit Brian’s site!

Anyway, I’ve asked Brian to, each month, send me his “Pick of the Month”. Basically, of all the sauces he has reviewed that month, which one gets “top Pick”?

This month, Brian recommended this great sauce from Trifecta. See the scoring below from Brian:

Aroma: Oniony Garlicy Jalapeno… oh yeah.

Flavor Uncooked: Fantastic Spicy Sweet, a a nice ketchup replacement with jalapeno undertones and garlic

Flavor Cooked: Caramelizes nicely for BBQ chicken, jalapeno cheddar burgers (recommend Au Bon Pain jalapeno cheddar rolls)

Ingredients: No strong negatives, but not gluten free for those with allergic sensitivities.

Marketing/Label: Appearance is very nice, professional. Sauce is well named, double meaning of the Trifecta

Bottom Line: So many great flavors and well selected flavors goes with almost anything and the heat slowly creeps up on you. That’s one of my favorite things about some BBQ sauce and this has it.

Thanks again to Brian for sharing his “best of the best” for another month! He runs some great contests on his site so I suggest you add it to your Favorites!

As for Trifecta, you can find them online here: Trifecta Sauce

Remember the folks over at Hack’s BBQ? Well, they are still at it – changing the recipe to be better, all natural and healthier – all the while keeping that same great taste!

Here is the latest:

Update from the Kitchen Hack

It has been several months since dryrubbedrat kindly let me be a guest blogger to announce new changes coming to Hack’s BBQ Sauce. In the time since then, I expected to create a great tasting all natural equivalent to Hack’s which I would introducing now. Instead, the development has been more difficult that I first thought. I don’t know why I figured I could do it quickly. It took 2 years to perfect Hack’s BBQ Sauce! What was I thinking?

While I don’t have a new sauce to introduce yet, the past several months have still been fruitful. I’ve learned alot about different flavors and how they work together and with different types of meat. I’ve gotten some great feedback from family and friends who have suffered through many tastings and discussions. From all this, I think we are definitely heading in the right direction. One of the side benefits of this process has been the reformulation of the original Hack’s BBQ Sauce. We were able to remove a substantial amount of the high fructose corn syrup without affecting the taste. This improved sauce is now being sold on our website and will hit the local stores in a few weeks.

Because customers just love the way Hack’s BBQ Sauce tastes, my original goal was to make the all-natural version taste exactly the same as the original. I see now that this is not a realistic goal. The all-natural sauce will definitely have a different flavor, and that’s OK. But I won’t consider the new sauce ready until it has the same quality of taste as the original. That way, I know my customers will be absolutely delighted when they crack open a bottle for their next barbecue.

OK, I haven’t done a full review yet but I did have a taste on a pork roast I smoked two weekends ago.

I want to thank the folks at Rufus Teague for sending me some of their sauce to try.

I’ll post a full review soon, but I can say this stuff was gooooooood…….

More to follow!