Big Dawg Slobber Sauce Ingredients: Ketchup, mustard, water, chipotle peppers, onion powder, garlic powder, sea salt, black pepper, natural smoke flavor.

“It’s like when you were a kid, you mixed ketchup and mustard together. That is basically what we did for this sauce”. That’s what Darrel, creator of Big Dawg Sauces, told me when I picked up his barbeque sauce. It comes in a nice 12-ounce bottle, complete with a beautiful glossy label with elaborate designs. Because Darrel is a firefighter, he has gone with that theme for the label. It has the bulldog on the front, holding an ax while dressed in a fire fighter suit, a half toned fire truck in the background and burnt edges around the label. Very cool.

I had slight trouble opening the bottle because the top came with a wax seal, but maybe if I had been a burly fire fighter I wouldn’t have had that problem. Stamped into the top of the wax was a dog’s paw print which marks the first time I’ve seen something stamped into the wax seals of hot sauce. I definitely hope that this is the start of a brand new trend.

The sauce is really thick, something that one expects from a bbq sauce, containing some chunks of peppers and seeds mixed in. This is a nice change of pace being that most of the bbq sauces out there have been blended into a smooth uniform paste. The color, however, has a hint of that nasty neon yellow mustard color so I was slightly worried that it has a lot of that in it. Unfortunately I was right.

Right out of the bottle the taste is primarily ketchup and mustard. Absolutely hating mustard is a huge personal problem of mine so I can’t fault Darrel and his crew for putting it in there and if you like that substance, this sauce is for you. The sweetness of the high fructose corn syrup in the ketchup is easily picked up and there is a slight smokiness to it as well, but not an overall chipotle type smokiness.

The flavors really hit you and are almost overwhelming for the most part until you use this sauce for what it was intended; barbequing. I decided to use skinless chicken breasts for this experiment, “slobbering” the sauce on both side of the meat, and then grilled it over an open fire of barbeque briquettes. The sauce basically caramelizes, forming a tasty, crispy shell, trapping the moisture thus keeping the chicken nice and tender, which is the only way to have chicken. The boldness of the flavors dies down a lot and the sweetness moves from upfront to in the background. I still can taste the mustard very heavily though.

Not much heat here too, which makes this sauce very “Sunday afternoon family barbeque” friendly. Heck, my dad would probably love this sauce and he can’t take any heat. So next time you think about lighting up the grill, don’t reach for that generic name brand bbq sauce from the grocery store, use a bottle of Big Dawg Slobber Sauce, “Betcha get caught licking the bowl”.

Taste: 6.5, Heat: 2.1