Barry’s 40 Year Old Whisky BBQ Sauce

BBQ is one of my favorite types of cooking.  BBQ is slowly cooking meat over a wood fire.  The slow cooking tenderizes the meat while imparting a delicious smoky flavor.  Grilling on the other hand is directly cooking the meat over a flame, searing the outside to lock in the flavor. You need to patient with BBQ because if you are not, the meat will be as tough as shoe leather.  If you take your time, you will be rewarded with rich, succulent, tender, flavorful meat.  I also love sauces.  I’m always creating pan sauces out of ingredients I have on hand to “jazz up” an ordinary chicken breast, or a piece of fish. 

I was making ribs yesterday and decided I wanted a new BBQ sauce.  My usual sauce is sweet, tangy and savory.  I wanted something sweeter and hotter.  But, not too hot as my wife, who dislikes hot food, would not eat it.  So, in the interest of harmony, I deferred to her wishes.  After all, you can always add more heat with a few drops of hot sauce.  If you notice in my recipe, I only added ½ TSP of cayenne pepper.  It still gave me a nice warm finish.  You can obviously add more to suit your individual taste. 

I liked the idea of using bourbon whisky as a base.  Bourbon is smooth and flavorful.  It is  sweet, nutty and oaky.  I began to scour the Internet looking for some recipes.  I couldn’t find what I liked.  This one looked too sweet, this one too savory, this one too hot.  Also, I like using certain ingredients in my sauce to make it unique.  To begin with, I love onions and garlic.  They had to go into the sauce.  I also love Worchester sauce.  It has a very rich and complex taste.  I also use Gravy Master.  It too adds a lot of flavor.  They had to go into the sauce as well. Honey went into the pool because it is smooth and mellow.  Lastly, I couldn’t add bourbon because I didn’t have enough on hand!  What I did have was a forty-year-old bottle of Seagram’s.  I had filched this when I moved out of my parents’ house after college.  In all of those years I never cracked it open.  Oh well, nothing like the present.   I also wanted the sauce to have a smooth silky taste.  Hmmm.  Vanilla. The sour of the vinegar contrasted nicely with the sweetness of the sugar, maple syrup and honey insuring the sauce would not be overly sweet.  A few other spices from my spice drawer and I think I came up with a winner.

Barry’s 40 Year Old Whisky BBQ Sauce

I medium onion, fine dice

3 cloves of garlic, minced

pinch of salt

pinch of black pepper

1 TBL butter

Dry Ingredients

2 cups of brown sugar (loosely packed)

2 TSP ground ginger

½ TSP salt

½ TSP dried mustard

½ TSP cayenne pepper

½ TSP of paprika(smoked if possible)

Wet Ingredients

¼ cup of white wine vinegar

¼ cup apple cider vinegar

1 TBL Worchester sauce

1 TBL Gravy Master

1/3 cup of honey

2/3  cup maple syrup

1 cup ketchup

1 TSP vanilla extract

2/3 cup of whiskey

Combine the wet and dry ingredients in separate bowls. In a medium saucepan heat up the butter.  When butter is hot, add the onions.  Season with salt and pepper. Sweat the onions until they start to turn golden brown.  Add the garlic and stir.  Cook for 30 seconds until the garlic becomes fragrant.   Carefully add the wet ingredients.  Stir to combine.  Add  the dry ingredients.  Stir to combine.  Turn the heat to medium and bring to boil.  Turn heat down to low and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes to thicken.  Stir occasionally to make sure the sauce isn’t burning on the bottom of the pan.  If it is, turn the heat down slightly.  That’s it.