I like corkys honey bbq better than sbr but just cause its really sweet and fullbodied. Sweet baby rays is kinda... Watery to me? Idk. Theyre not even similar sauces. Although ketchup is best for meatloaf
There's a place in my area which has, off the top of my head, a house barbecue, a mustard barbecue, a Carolina barbecue (vinegar-based), a hot barbecue, a white barbecue (horseradish, I think?), and an "oh god my mouth is on fire" ghost pepper murder barbecue. Might also be more I'm forgetting.
I am a confessed Barbecue Snob and basically only buy barbecue sauce at the store to put in meatloaf. I think Sweet Baby Ray's is ketchup-based with brown sugar and I like it better than just ketchup. If I'm gonna make barbecue at home, I'll just make the sauce myself. I've always heard mustard based called Carolina barbecue, not the vinegar one. Interesting! My area has the vinegar sauce which is usually hot (I think a few places do a sweet vinegar sauce but it's not my favorite), mustard sauce, light tomato which is ketchup with tomato puree for the base, and heavy tomato which is tomato puree with no ketchup. (Oh a note because I found out that other places don't use the word like I do: when I talk about barbecue I'm specifically talking about pulled pork that's been cooked for hours with some kind of smoke involved.)
The place I was talking about also offers beef, pulled chicken, and grilled tofu. (As I'm not a red meat person, my standard order is a chicken sandwich with mustard barbecue.)
Beef, pork and chicken are all acceptable barbecue meats to me- note, Pacific Northwest here. I like either a house standard barbecue sauce (I'm assuming that's "tomato based") or a vinegar based if I'm doing sauce, but seriously. Dry rub is superior.
it it contains, is coated by, or has been within a 30 mile radius of barbecue sauce. It's barbecue. [Edit:] removed extraneous sauce.
You may become very overwhelmed if you ever visit South Carolina. All the BBQ places have like, 5 options on the table itself let alone on the menu. The plus side of this is I actually found bbq sauce that I like.
In North Carolina, the eastern part of the state mostly uses a purely vinegar-based sauce, and the western part of the state mostly uses a ketchup-based sauce. I think the mustard-based sauce is a South Carolina thing?
My parents moved to upstate SC where all three of those are common, don't remember the names they generally got but I discovered I like the ketchup-based, while my mom prefers the vinegar one and my oldest sister the mustard I think. A glorious time of discovery
most surreal bbq experience: getting a nice spicy plate of ribs and not being able to taste anything even when I could feel my lips protesting the capsaicin involved bc medical treatment had fucked my tastebuds up but good it was great but also: what even
The thing is, I like ketchup, I like brown sugar, I like vinegar, it's the smokey taste I can't get over.
@Squid I am all about smokey flavour; one time I had a peach lemonade with liquid smoke in it and it was the best thing.
Smoke is another one of those flavors that I'm fine with in small amounts but it can be a distraction from the rest of the food that makes the experience less fun.
It confuses me why people put sauce on barbecue. Why cover the delicious meat flavor? Then again I'm all about more is more, so if that's the case I understand.
