Bourbon Barbecue Sauce (two recipes!)

My quest for the best barbecue sauce ended when I tried it with bourbon. So good I had to make two slightly different recipes. You wouldn't believe how easy it is to make them and how long they last!

Making homemade barbecue sauce is very easy and quick.

You can have it in your fridge for weeks, so there's really no excuse to make it. I usually have a jar along with the best chimichurri sauce, which is the real deal of course.

Use it for barbecued and grilled meats, sandwiches, glazes for cocktail sausages, holiday hams, and other sweet and sour sauces. I also add it to sandwiches when I have leftover rosemary steak.

The truth is that a barbecue sauce made with bourbon is fantastic. Barbecue sauce by itself is incredible. Bourbon is amazing in the first place, so both are even better.

About barbecue sauce

It originated in the United States, as we all know, in the South from what I read.

There are a million recipes and a whole lot are great ones. It all comes down to personal taste as to what goes into it in addition to the usual ingredients such as ketchup, onion, sugar or another sweetener, something spicy, and such.

My favorite is with bourbon, which lends a sweet but smoky aftertaste that is amazing.

The difference between the 2 recipes

The original recipe is redder, with a more defined tomato flavor, an onion and vinegar aftertaste, and the amount of hotness you like, since it's the added tabasco that gives it that extra kick -  I suggest you start with a teaspoon and see how it goes, since adding too much makes it hard to water down afterward, something I learned the hard way.

It has a more traditional flavor, more old-fashioned.

The newer version, pictured below, of my loved bourbon barbecue sauce, is more sophisticated, with liquid smoke, soy sauce, and a few other ingredients. Its texture is more liquid and has a smoky aftertaste, a more adult version of what I always thought as barbecue sauce.

Both are amazingly easy to make, nothing more than cooking the ingredients in a saucepan, stirring often to avoid burning the bottom, and then refrigerate it before using. Really easy and so worth making at home. Grilling season is ending somewhere but will start soon somewhere else.

And a bourbon barbecue sauce is always a good idea to have in the fridge. You never know when the burger pang strikes.

Which one do I choose? The darker one, with liquid smoke. For now at least.

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Let me know in the comments below if you made this recipe and loved it and if you had issues so we can troubleshoot together. I love to hear what you think, always. Thanks for being here. It's much appreciated.
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Adapted from Bon Appetit