BBQ SAUCE OF THE WEEK: Demon Pig BBQ Sauce

With a name like "Demon Pig", one would expect a real flamethrower of a sauce, but to my surprise, this sauce was not spicy at all. The first thing I noticed about this sauce when I poured it was that there are big chunks of stuff in it. Closer inspection revealed the chunks to be onion and bell pepper. I don't necessarily have a problem with chunks. In this case, the onions factor very prominently in the flavor of the sauce, so watch out onion-haters. The other major flavor component is brown sugar sweetness - this sauce is very, very sweet. And while the sweetness and the onion dominate things, there is a nice depth and well-roundedness provided by bit players garlic, vinegar and tomato.

Yeah, the label tells me it has high fructose corn syrup in it. And liquid smoke. So it might not make the cut at Whole Foods. Does that make the Demon Pig a guilty pleasure? Eh, who cares? The bottom line with barbecue sauce, as far as I'm concerned, is "does it taste good?". And the answer in this case is: absolutely.

Grade: A

UPDATE: It has been brought to our attention that there was a misprint regarding the ingredients on the Demon Pig label. The sauce does NOT in fact contain High Fructose Corn Syrup, but rather the much more benign sorghum. Apparently, future label printings will correct this error. So there you go...tastes great, and all natural taboot.