James Gang BBQ and Grilling Sauces
Big Flavors.
The world is full of BBQ and grilling sauces and everyone has their opinion about which one is the best, but you won’t go wrong with the deep flavored sauces produced by Oregon’s own James Gang BBQ Sauce Company.
For our editors' blind taste test of James Gang BBQ sauces, we made lamb and beef mini burgers (sliders) and we sampled them both cooked and uncooked.
Back in 1993, Jesse James (yep, that’s his real name) and his wife, Pam, bought Red’s BBQ Restaurant on the Oregon coast and Jesse began experimenting to create the ultimate sauce for the restaurant. Customers so loved his BBQ sauce they clamored for him to sell sauce they could take home. He began bottling his sauce in Mason jars with homemade labels. While the James Gang is no longer in the restaurant business, today the company produces six different BBQ and grilling sauces and a steak marinade. (They also produce a line of dry rubs that we’ll review in another article.)
To evaluate the James Gang’s sauces, RFT editors conducted a blind taste test of four sauces. We made sliders (small hamburgers) both of ground chuck and ground lamb and cooked them with the different sauces. We also sampled each sauce uncooked. Overall, we found the sauces thick and rich with complex flavors often not found in commercial BBQ/grilling sauces. While many sauces have one or two notes, the James Gang’s sauces have a full bluegrass band playing in your mouth. (Note: We were disappointed to find that three of the four sauces we sampled contained both high fructose corn syrup and artificial dyes. In our opinion, there are more healthful sweeteners and the dyes aren’t necessary in these otherwise delicious products.)
You can buy a sampler pack of James Gang BBQ sauces. They also make dry rubs.
Honey Habanero Wing and Grilling Sauce — This is sauce that’ll wake up your taste buds with sweet heat. The habanero chili flavor is subtle, but a definite flavor note. We found cooking this sauce actually cut the heat substantially.
Jesse’s Private Stock Spicy BBQ Sauce — This is a solid, smoky BBQ sauce with less heat than the Habanero and it was our favorite. Not overly sweet, this BBQ sauce is one you could use every day on beef, pork, lamb, or fowl. This sauce won third place in one of the National BBQ Association’s national competitions and we agree that this is one deliciously flavorful sauce.
Sweet Southern Heat Grilling Sauce — Another spicy sauce (in fact, spicier than the Habanero Sauce), this one was too hot for one of our tasters. It’s got heat with background notes of whiskey.
Of the four sauces we sampled, James Gang Spicy BBQ Jesse's Private Stock was our editors' favorite.
Hickory Smoke BBQ Sauce — Lighter in flavor and sweeter than Jesse’s Spicy BBQ Sauce, this sauce was the least complex of the four. Despite its name, we couldn’t really discern much hickory smoke and would like that element kicked up a bit. This sauce is probably closest to commercially available sweet sauces found on grocery store shelves. This was also the only sauce of the four we sampled that did not contain high fructose corn syrup (it’s sweetened with sugar) and we applaud that.
Real bottom line: The James Gang produces thick, rich BBQ and grilling sauces that stick to the meat. We liked their sauces both cooked and uncooked and found each flavor to be interesting and distinctive. In addition, at $4/bottle, James Gang BBQ sauces are a bargain. —BH
