Ole Ray’s Classic Gold Barbecue & Cooking Sauce

Manufacturer Ole Ray’s Sauces
Website www.olerayssauces.com

Quality **** (4 out of 5)
Viscosity **** (4 out of 5)
Aroma *** (3.5 out of 5)
Appearance *** (4 out of 5)
Packaging **** (4 out of 5)

This sauce was used on pulled pork, smoked bologna and smoked pastrami.

As with most of Ole Ray’s sauces, the Classic Gold comes with an impressive resume. You can view their array of awards on their website (see above) by clicking on the Awards/News tabs.

This sauce comes in a 12oz glass bottle. The bottle has a nice heft to it. You may see reference to the quality of the glass in a number of our reviews. In general there are three categories of sauce bottles. There is the near ubiquitous plastic bottle where quality variance in the plastic is negligible. There is the ‘step up’ bottle that is glass as opposed to plastic, but is made of thin and cheap glass. The bottles employed by Ole Ray’s belong in the third category of glass that is well made and not designed to cut corners.

The labeling on the bottle is black with gold lettering, nicely matching the color of the sauce itself. I’m relatively sure that it wasn’t intentional, but there are black specks (pepper?) in the sauce; so the color schemes match perfectly. Incidental, but a nice touch. The sauce itself is a rich, golden color. It’s a tad darker than a standard mustard sauce, but is still visually appealing.

The aroma offers the user traits of both the sweetness in the sauce and the mustard. The ‘mustardy’ profile is less overpowering than in many mustard sauces. The aroma is slightly less powerful than the taste.

This is a mild sauce, but that might be misleading. The sauce offers a very distinct flavor. Many sauces labeled as ‘mild’ are easily overpowered by the flavors of what they are being put on or of other ingredients. Although the sauce is certainly mild, that doesn’t mean that they have sacrificed taste or flavor.

I would use it sparingly, especially on chicken. When compared to a vinegar based sauce or a traditional Kansas City sauce, less is more with Ole Ray’s Golden Classic. You don’t need to slather (used as an descriptor, not a noun) your meat with this sauce to enjoy it.

It is easy to see how and why Ole Ray’s Golden Classic sauce has won the accolades that are displayed on their website. This is a quality sauce that would be enjoyed by any fan of sauces with a mustard base.

SIDE NOTE: I’m cooking up some BBQ for a party later this month. We are expecting over a hundred guests. I’m going to be offering an array of sauces and seeing which sauce is the most popular with the guests. I’ll be presenting an unofficial ‘Peoples Choice’ award based on their preferences.

I’m helping to organize a small contest here on Long Island in June and I’m going to enlist the aid of a dozen or so fellow Certified BBQ Judges to run a ‘heads up’ bracketed sauce competition. I’ll be entering this sauce in both of these events and I’ll report back.

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Cowboy Chris’ Mild Barbecue Sauce

Manufacturer: Cowboy Chris’ Barbecue Sauce
Email: Cowboy33_@excite.com

Quality *** (3.5 out of 5)
Viscosity *** (3 out of 5)
Aroma *** (3 out of 5)
Appearance *** (3.5 out of 5)
Packaging **** (4 out of 5)

This sauce was used on pulled pork, and brisket that were cooked low and slow over cherry wood. The opinions are both mine and Will Breakstone’s, owner and pit-master of Willie B’s Award Winning BBQ.

It seems that Cowboy Chris’ Barbecue Sauce is a new and rather small manufacturer that offers a mild and a hot BBQ sauce as well as a wing sauce. ‘Cowboy Chris’ is not a Madison Ave. moniker. The founder of the company is a rodeo fan and grew up in a family that shared that passion.

The sauces come in 18oz plastic bottles that allow for easy pouring of this slightly loose sauce. The sauce is a light orange’ish color and has a mild, sweet aroma. The aroma is on par to the taste. Mild but pleasing.

The sauce has a combination of standard ingredients (ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, etc.) but they have struck an excellent balance. The taste isn’t unique or off the beaten path, but it is well made and the flavors are properly integrated. There is subtle layering and no one taste dominates.

Overall the taste lives up to its label as being ‘mild’ and it also offers a significant sweetness. This sauce offers a pleasing bulk to it. The aroma might lead you to believe that the sauce is wispy and ethereal, without significant body or heft. There is a surprising substance to the sauce and it offers a significant impact on the food you are placing it on. The sweetness isn’t all that’s being offered to the palette.

The sauce has barely visible ingredients that are pleasing when chewed. As should be obvious to regular readers, I enjoy sauces that provide at least a hint of texture. I’m assuming that there are minced onions or peppers that are represented, but the opaque sauce makes it hard to tell.

Cowboy Chris’ Mild Barbecue Sauce is a good sauce offered at a fair price. I look forward to seeing where they take their product line in the future.

*Sauce pictured is the 'hot' version.


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Tassleberry Farm Strawberry BBQ Sauce
Manufacturer Tassleberry Farm
Website www.tassleberry.com

Quality **** (4 out of 5)
Viscosity *** (3 out of 5)
Aroma **** (4 out of 5)
Appearance **** (4.5 out of 5)
Packaging **** (4 out of 5)

This sauce was used on pulled pork and brisket that was cooked low and slow over cherry wood. The opinions are both mine and Will Breakstone’s, owner and pit-master of Willie B’s Award Winning BBQ.

Tassleberry Farm is located in central NY and they are a strawberry farm that manufactures their own strawberry products. It is heartening to see a supplier who is producing a product from their own harvest as opposed to using an outside purveyor. We have seen this once before with our review of the Chukar Cherry sauce and we were extremely impressed with their product. Tassleberry Farm makes it ‘2 for 2’, as this sauce is a hit.

This BBQ sauce comes in a 16oz. bottle with an elegant label. The packaging doesn’t have that homey, rural look that a lot of sauces (often from major metropolitan cities) strive for, and I like that. If this was purposeful, it was a great choice. Going contrarian accentuates that this sauce is well off the beaten path for the standard BBQ condiments. The labeling and bottling have a decided epicurean feel to them and they stand out.

The sauce is a dark, rich red that offers a wonderful aroma. The aroma represents a significant sweetness that is not as prominent in the taste. The sauce is very thick and should not be used as a glaze or a mop. As a matter of fact, when you are preparing to use this sauce, be patient. It doesn’t pour easy, but it’s worth the wait.

I was expecting a very sweet sauce with a strong emphasis on the strawberry flavor profile. I was surprised to find that the sweetness of the strawberry was downplayed and the basic flavor was highlighted. We may be of a like mind in finding it hard to mentally separate the sweetness from the inherent strawberry flavor. Tasting this sauce was a revelation.

The sauce has a slight sweetness, but offers a very deep flavor. The interesting mix of the tomato, strawberry and the strawberry’s pickling agent offers a very unique flavor that is appealing on both lighter subjects such as chicken and stronger meats such as brisket. The strawberry seeds offer a nice crunch and a variation on the mouthfeel. The taste lingers in the pleasantly in the mouth with hints of paprika and vinegar (possibly from the pickling agent).

This sauce is very highly recommended for true BBQ. I’m not sure if I would use it for grilling burgers and the like, but it is definitely coming out of the refrigerator for a BBQ I’m cooking for at the end of the month.

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EZ Earl Smokin-Hot Sauce


Manufacturer Branding Iron Foods

Website www.brandingironfoods.com

Quality **** (4.5 out of 5)
Viscosity *** (3 out of 5)
Heat **** (4.5 out of 5)
Appearance **** (4 out of 5)

This sauce was used on pulled pork and brisket that was cooked low and slow with apple wood and oak.

EZ Earls Smokin-Hot Sauce comes in a 15oz glass bottle. The sauce is thick, but pours easily. The bottle has a nice heft to it. The label has the image of an individual that I assume is Earl in iconic western regalia. The overall visual impression is strong and stands out amongst other sauces.

The aroma of the sauce is pleasing and has a nice ‘tang’ to it. It indicates the flavor, but not the intensity, of what is to come.


The sauce is a rich, dark red coloring. Regular readers will note that there are three general ‘looks’ for sauces. The first is a mustard sauce, which will range from a light to a golden yellow color. The second is the traditional KC style sauce that is reddish in color and regular without color variation. The third are sauces that have ingredients that are visible in the sauce. These are usually a darker color or are unusual varieties (sadly, the classic vinegar sauces fall into the ‘unusual’ category). I prefer the sauces that allow you to see seeds or bits of onion and peppers. EZ Earls does a great job giving you a preview of what you are going to be tasting. The seeds are clearly visible and to me at least, it makes the sauce that much more appealing.

As long as we are drawing comparisons, let’s discuss heat. There are two types of ‘hot’ BBQ sauce. The first spicy BBQ sauce is for the average consumer that purchases their sauce at their local grocery store. The sauce is often labeled as ‘bold’ or ‘spicy’. It’s usually neither. The second category is the sauce produced by a manufacturer who knows heat and produces sauces for the scoville aficionado. Unfortunately, these manufacturers are often more interested in the heat than the flavor.

Branding Iron Foods knows heat. Thankfully, they also know flavor and find no reason to sacrifice one for the other. This is a quality sauce that provides a serious kick. For a ‘heat head’ I would rate the heat a 7 out of 10. It’s not going to burn your tongue, but it is going to give you something to remember. A number of the hotter sauces will offer a sweet background to offset the spice (look for the upcoming review of the excellent Tassleberry Farms Strawberry Jerk Sauce as an example). EZ Earl goes in a different direction and offers a savory complement to the heat that provides an excellent base, but a less severe contrast.

The flavor lingers nicely with an enjoyable heat and without the burn that seriously hot sauces often induce. I would NOT use this sauce with chicken or fish. It might make an interesting marinade for the chicken, but not a sauce. Stronger meats would pair well with EZ Earl’s Smokin-Hot Sauce.

This is one of the highest quality spicy BBQ sauces that I have had the pleasure to taste. I recommend it highly to anyone that enjoys serious heat in their ‘Q.

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Grandville’s Gourmet BBQ Sauce Extra Spicy

Manufacturer Grandville’s Gourmet BBQ Sauce Extra Spicy
Website www.grandvillesbbqsauces.com

Quality **** (4.5 out of 5)
Viscosity **** (5 out of 5)
Aroma **** (4 out of 5)
Spice **** (4 out of 5)
Appearance ***** (5 out of 5)
Packaging *** (3 out of 5)

This sauce was used on pulled pork and brisket that was cooked low and slow over cherry wood. The opinions are both mine and Will Breakstone’s, owner and pit-master of Willie B’s Award Winning BBQ.

This is our second review of a Grandville’s sauce and nothing much has changed. They are still an excellent, top tier sauce. The tropical and spicy sauces are similar to one another while oddly disparate. Quite often a spicy BBQ sauce will be the same sauce as the manufacturers ‘base’ or ‘mild’, but jacked up. Grandville’s seems to make a serious effort to provide separate and distinct flavor profiles. The constant in this equation is the first class quality.

The sauce comes in an 18 oz. mason like jar. The packaging is a little cartoony, with an anthropomorphized pepper on the label. The packaging works fine, providing a distinct look for the brand.

The sauce has a nice ‘fruity’ and natural aroma that is not indicative of the heat. The aroma seemed a bit stronger in this sauce as opposed to their tropical variety.

The sauce itself is a dark red with a great viscosity. Notice I said viscosity, not consistency. The sauce has sizeable chunks of ingredients that improves the overall mouthfeel and appearance. It is a serious departure from the overly pureed KC style sauces that we see so often.

There is an initial sweetness to this sauce that accents the substantial heat that comes your way a short while later. If a 10 is the hottest commercial BBQ sauce you will find, this is a 7. That isn’t a very expansive description of the heat factor. You have to also take into account the integration of the various flavors, whether the heat offers anything but scovilles and how the heat lingers. This sauce passes with flying colors on all accounts.

There should be one, small editorial note: I truly enjoy spicy foods more than the average person. What for me is a 7 on the heat level might be significantly higher for you.

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