Barbecue sauce is really a map of the country. Drive from Kansas City to Texas to the Carolinas to Alabama and the sauce changes every time, which makes it one of the most fun things to taste side by side at a cookout. You don't need a smoker or a catering budget to run this. You need four bottles that disagree with each other and a grill.
Build a lineup that covers the regions
The most interesting flight compares base, not just brand:
- Kansas City. Thick, sweet and tomato-based, the style most people picture when they hear "barbecue sauce."
- Texas. Thinner, more peppery, often leaning on the beef and smoke rather than sugar.
- Carolina vinegar. Thin, tangy and sharp, built for pulled pork rather than ribs.
- Carolina mustard or Alabama white. The wildcard. Mustard-based sauce is bright yellow and tangy; Alabama white sauce is mayonnaise-based and goes on chicken, not beef. Either one surprises guests who've only ever had tomato-based sauce.
Four bottles across four bases tells a much better story than four sweet tomato sauces from four different grocery shelves.
How much to buy
Sauce goes a long way in a tasting portion. A bottle of each of your four sauces is plenty for a group of eight to ten guests tasting a spoonful of each, with enough left over to actually sauce the food once the tasting's done. Buy more of whichever sauce you plan to cook with, since that one does double duty.
Set up the Sauce-Off
Pour a small cup of each sauce, keep the bottles out of sight, and number the cups 1 through 4. Guests dip the same plain cracker or piece of bread into each one, score it, and guess the region before the reveal. Running it blind means nobody's guessing based on the label, just the sauce itself. How to Run a Blind Tasting has tips on scoring and keeping the reveal fun.
How to taste barbecue sauce
- Taste it plain first, off a spoon or a plain cracker, before it ever touches meat.
- Note the base. Is it tomato-sweet, vinegar-sharp, mustard-tangy or mayo-rich? That's the biggest clue to the region.
- Look for sugar, smoke and heat separately. A good sauce usually leans on one or two of these, not all three at once.
- Taste it again on food. Sauce behaves differently on a dry piece of chicken than on a spoon, so a final taste on the actual cookout food is worth the extra step.
Build a dipper and sides board
Once the blind round wraps, set out a board of things worth dipping: pulled pork, chicken tenders, fries, cornbread and vegetables all work. Keep each sauce in its own labeled squeeze bottle or ramekin so the board stays tidy once people start going back for seconds.
Cook safely
Whatever you're grilling, cook it to a safe internal temperature rather than guessing by color or time; USDA minimums vary by meat (poultry needs to hit a higher temperature than a steak, for instance), so a meat thermometer is worth having on the grill table regardless of how experienced the cook is.
Finish with a crowd-size batch
Once the tasting's done, scale one of the sauces into a pulled pork recipe or a slider bar so everyone gets to eat what they just tasted, not just a spoonful of it.
Our BBQ Sauce 101 kit runs the whole cookout for you: 12 real sauces sorted into three tiers from grocery classics to Kansas City, Carolina and Alabama icons, the blind Sauce-Off tasting game, a dipper and sides board, USDA cooking temperatures, and eight party-size batches including pulled pork for a crowd and a slider bar.