A Happy Couple
Honey + the zest of BBQ = a deliciously popular sauce
It originated nearly 40 years ago one afternoon at the Sioux Honey plant in Sioux City, Iowa. Plant Manager Denny Kayl began experimenting, mixing ingredients and taste-testing what would later become one of Sioux Honey’s most popular products: SUE BEE® Original Style Barbecue Sauce.
Denny used a mixer that had previously been used to create SUE BEE’S® SPUN® Honey. In fact, we still use that same mixer – made in the USA, by the way – to make fresh batches of our famed BBQ sauce. We’ve also stayed true to the original recipe, with a minor tweak here and there. One thing (along with the mixer) that has never changed: Honey is the first ingredient.
Our original style barbecue sauce did not come about because we thought adding honey to a barbecue sauce would be a good idea. It came about because we thought adding a barbecue sauce to honey would be a tasty idea. There’s a big difference. Honey was the first ingredient, not an afterthought. And you can taste the difference. In fact, 48% of our SUE BEE® Original Style Honey Barbecue Sauce is our honey. That’s important to us. Then we add rich tomato and natural spices to complete a sweet and tangy blend.
“The sweetness of honey pairs well with many foods but really compliments BBQ,” says Dustin Livermore, director of quality control at Sioux Honey. “It definitely takes BBQ sauce to the next level. Unlike many other honey-BBQ sauces, where honey can be a very minor sub-ingredient, in our sauce it is the star of the show; it is the No. 1 ingredient.”
Dustin says the magic happens in that celebrated mixer we mentioned earlier. “The mixer is used to blend the ingredients together. Then, in a steam-jacketed tank, the sauce is cooked to the correct temperature. And then it sits for a set amount of time before finally being moved to bottling.”
The result? The perfect honey BBQ sauce.
If any of this is tickling your taste buds, visit the SUE BEE® Amazon pageand order a bottle now so you’ll have it on hand for your next cookout. And if you need some grilling ideas, be sure to take a gander at our mouthwatering recipes for SUE BEE® Honey BBQ Chicken Wings and SUE BEE® Honey BBQ Ribs.
