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Column: industry Tag: bbq sauces,grilling and smoking Published: 2024-11-20 13:45 Source: www.mashed.com Author: SAM ZWICKNOV
Sam Zwick/Mashed
Barbecue sauces are like personalities. Some get poured on thick and are sweet as honey, while others run a bit thinner and offer a bit more spice. No matter how many options are presented, there's always one or two you can't help but gravitate towards — which is why the mayor of Flavortown has a line of barbecue sauces designed to cater to every taste bud.
Guy Fieri's Flavortown lineup consists of nine sauces in total, four of which are barbecue. To find out which of the BBQ options hit the mark just right, I ordered all four barbecue sauces to try them out myself. Flavortown sauces are available at a number of major grocery retailers like Walmart, Pick 'n Save, and Publix, but I turned to Amazon, where all four of the brand's barbecue sauces were available.
I tasted each sauce solo before pairing it with a chicken thigh recipe for that real barbecue experience. Read on to find out which sauce is the boss and which should be sent back to Flavortown.
4. Flavortown Money Honey BBQ Sauce
Sam Zwick/Mashed
I so badly wanted to like the Money Honey sauce. First, it's got a great name. Anything that rhymes gets a one-point boost in my personal, totally arbitrary ratings. And it's got honey! Ask my poor wife how much I love all types of honey, and she'll point to the fact that I use cornbread as a vessel to practically drink the stuff — so I figured Money Honey BBQ Sauce would be for me. Sadly, I was mistaken.
By itself, the sauce's flavor seems split between the distinct sweetness of honey and the tang of a good barbecue sauce. What's left is a relatively thick substance that tastes like corn syrup trying to do too much. Because of this, it's especially surprising that this sauce only contains 7 grams of sugar per 2-tablespoon serving, meaning that it has the second-lowest sugar content of Flavortown's barbecue sauce quartet.
The issue here is that Money Honey doesn't really taste like honey. Corn syrup solids are the second ingredient listed, while honey is the last of the primary ingredients — and that's evident in the taste. Furthermore, this sauce didn't fare much better on meat. It still left a funny taste in my mouth, and didn't complement the chicken at all. This is just simply not a good sauce — but thankfully, it's an outlier on this list.
3. Flavortown Mop Sauce BBQ Sauce
Sam Zwick/Mashed
I love a good dipping sauce, but Mop Sauce is not that. As the name suggests, this is a sauce best generously applied — or mopped on — to your favorite meat during the cooking process.
Mop Sauce is the thinnest of the Flavortown BBQ offerings, and by far the most spice-forward. There's a grittiness to the texture thanks to the generous quantity of chili powder included. Alone, this sauce is like a right hook to the taste buds. Strong spice levels (though not necessarily heat) paired with vinegar make Mop Sauce an ingredient best used sparingly. As with all the other sauces, I brushed some on my chicken thighs during the cooking process, and this is definitely where Mop Sauce shines. It adds a beautiful, deep-red color to the meat, and its thinner consistency makes it easy to distribute evenly. I would probably lean towards using Mop Sauce as a marinade in the future, or as part of the sauce in a batch of slow-cooked shredded meat.
Mop Sauce is a sauce for basting, not dipping. As part of the Flavortown lineup, it's a great changeup from the more traditional sauces on this list, and it's definitely worth a spot in your barbecue kit.
2. Flavortown Carolina Style BBQ Sauce
Sam Zwick/Mashed
Regional barbecue styles are as American as apple pie and rooting against the Cowboys. Depending on where you travel, barbecue cooking methods, meats, and side-dish options change according to local customs — but most important is the sauce.
South Carolina is known for a mustard-based sauce that's the inspiration behind Flavortown's Carolina Style BBQ Sauce. The muddy-gold sauce features yellow mustard as its second ingredient, so if you're vehemently anti-mustard, this may not be the sauce for you. I, however, loved it. This sauce is on the thinner side — a bit thicker than the Mop Sauce — and packs a tangy punch. My wife isn't a fan of yellow mustard on its own, but she enjoys honey mustard, and this sauce gives off similar vibes but with a definite barbecue twist.
I would happily use this sauce for both dipping and basting, but its use extends beyond barbecue. I'm excited to try this sauce as a component in salad dressings to add a little punch, or even to spice up roasted potatoes. Anytime a sauce can unexpectedly be used in mustard recipes, you know it's a winner, and Carolina Style BBQ Sauce is just that.
1. Flavortown Smokin' Hickory BBQ Sauce
Sam Zwick/Mashed
If you close your eyes and think "barbecue sauce," Smokin' Hickory will be what you imagine. It's sweet (packing 17 grams of sugar per 2 tablespoon serving), smoky, and thick. This sauce is made for dipping pretty much anything and everything into it.
Smokin' Hickory lives in the same people living nearby as Sweet Baby Ray's, but this sauce has its own personality. It's a little less sweet and a lot more smoky, which gives it a more authentic barbecue taste. The color is a rich mahogany, thanks to a relatively simple core-ingredient list of sugar, water, tomato paste, distilled vinegar, molasses, brown sugar, and modified corn starch. (There are a number of flavorings that comprise less than 2% of the overall makeup, including Worcestershire sauce as a secret ingredient.) If Mop Sauce is made for basting, and Carolina Style is made for dipping and mixing, then Smokin' Hickory is made to do it all.
Final thoughts and methodology
Sam Zwick/Mashed
Flavortown's barbecue sauce lineup had a pretty great day at the ballpark: three hits, and one swing and a miss. Beyond being a largely tasty lineup of sauces, the convenient squeeze bottles they come in are mess-free, and great for controlling your sauce quantities. If you're looking to expand your barbecue horizons, order some or visit your nearest local retailer and snag a bottle or two to try out. Just don't go with Money Honey; it's not worth your time.
I photographed and tested all four Flavortown barbecue sauces at my home. I tasted each sauce solo before trying it with chicken thighs. Taste, texture, and appearance were my key rating factors. Neither Mashed nor I received compensation from Flavortown for this review.
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