Gourmet BBQ Sauce

Best specialty and small-batch BBQ sauce

Small-batch BBQ sauces rarely contain artificial flavorings, preservatives or high-fructose corn syrup. However, at $5 to $8 per bottle or jar, they are expensive and some may be available only by mail order. These gourmet sauces rarely contain thickeners and are usually thinner than supermarket sauces.

Bone Suckin' Sauce Original (*Est. $ 7 for 16 ounces) earns rave reviews from tasters at Food and Wine magazine and from consumers posting to Amazon.com. Reviews say that this sauce hits all the right notes: it's sweet, smoky, tangy and only slightly spicy. Its all-natural ingredients include minced onions, honey, molasses and apple cider vinegar. One consumer posting to Amazon.com says it tastes homemade, and Eric Devlin of HomeOfBBQ.com says it's "better than 90% of the sauces out there." He notes that brisket's smoky aroma can overwhelm the delicate fruitiness of the sauce. Bone Suckin' makes several flavors, including a thicker version of its original sauce, Bone Suckin' Sauce -- Thicker Style (*Est. $7 for 16 ounces).

Although we read only one professional review of Bellycheer Gourmet Zesty Grilling Sauce (*Est. $6 for 13.4 ounces), it has an unusual claim to fame: it's one of only a few sugar-free BBQ sauces on the market. This sauce, which is sweetened with Splenda, gets a glowing review in TheNibble.com, a specialty-food website. It gets its flavor from such ingredients as apple cider and red wine vinegars, fresh and powdered onions and garlic and lemon juice. Editors say that you'd never know that this sauce contains artificial sweetener. It comes in mild and hot flavors.

Food writer David Rosengarten, who's known for his exhaustive taste tests, recommends The Salt Lick Original Recipe Bar-Be-Que Sauce (*Est. $7 for 12 ounces) from the barbeque restaurant of the same name in Driftwood, Tex. Food writers at BBQSauceReviews.com describe this sauce's flavor as "mustardy-sweet," with hints of garlic, onion and Worcestershire sauce. Kat Kinsman of AOLFood.com notes the presence of mace (a spice) and turmeric in this "light-bodied, easy-pouring" sauce. Reviewers agree that this is as good as mustard-based barbeque sauces get, but this sauce is only available by mail order with a minimum order of three bottles, and shipping is expensive.

Head's Red BBQ sauce (*est. $6 for 16 ounces) is another barbeque sauce that crops up more than once in lists of top small-batch BBQ sauces. This sauce, which is used by The Chi-Town Smokers cooking team in barbeque competitions, gets applause from Eric Devlin of HomeOfBBQ.com and BarbecueSauceReviews.com. At the latter website, Brian Henderson describes it as having a "deep red hue and complex flavor," while HomeOfBBQ.com's Eric Devlin calls it a "sweet sauce with a very mild heat that is superbly integrated." Both say that this is a BBQ sauce that truly complements the flavor of smoked meat, rather than masking it.