There must be a huge demand for BBQ sauces. Stop by any grocery store and you’ll see shelve upon shelve of commercially produced sauces. If you are fortunate enough to have a large regional grocery store chain, near by, you might find some local sauces, but for the most part you’re just going to get those normal, everyday mass produced sauces. There’s not anything necessarily wrong with those sauces, but there are so many artisan sauces produced by real BBQ people, that with a little investigation and forethought, you can get some great tasting sauces that will make you truly appreciate what a sauce should do. Compliment the meat it’s on.
One of those artisan sauces is Funny Farm BBQ’s “Original Competition BBQ Sauce.” Based out of Paola, Kansas Marc Matthews, the leader of the Funny Farm Competition BBQ Team, has come up with a great sauce that will compliment any meat.
I gave the Funny Farm sauce two different tries. Once on pork spare ribs rubbed with Simply Marvelous Pecan Rub and a second time with baby back ribs with Simply Marvelous Sweet & Spicy Rub. This allowed me to tell how the sauce would react to different flavor profiles.
In both cases the Funny Farm sauce complimented the rubs and meat. There’s a great deal of seasoning in the sauce and often times sauce makers try to make a good tasting sauce for the sake of the sauce. This is a great way to make a sauce if you want a sauce that overpowers everything. But true BBQ fanatics want a sauce that can be used as a compliment to the meat, rub and smoke. You get this with the Funny Farm sauce.
The sauce is sweet when it first hits the tongue which is a nice touch for those that enjoy enjoy sweet sauces. But because many of the popular BBQ rubs have a more spicy flavor profile it often clashes with the sweet sauces. In the case of Funny Farm sauce they’ve also given you a little spicy kick on the back end. It’s not really “hot” spicy, just spicy. This little surprise is what really enhances the seasoning on the meat.
I like to use mild fruit woods when I smoke pork. Since fruit woods are often times more mild you don’t want a sauce that will overpower the wood smoke flavor. What’s the point of spending six hours smoking ribs if you aren’t going to taste the wood smoke flavor. The Funny Farm sauce allows the wood smoke flavor to come through.
It’s no wonder the Funny Farm Competition BBQ Team has had the great results they have had on the BBQ competition circuit. I’m hoping they have great success with this sauce because they have a couple other sauces up their sleeves.
You can find Funny Farm on Facebook and order their sauce on their official website.
Great photo of those ribs! Yum!
Thanks for the heads up Larry. ALways looking for a good a sauce and the picture of those ribs sold me.