Fork ‘N Halo Original Sin BBQ Sauce (4/5)

Fork ‘N Halo Original Sin BBQ Sauce

Holy Honey Bees Batman! This stuff is different. It’s got some majorly positive qualities going for it – awesome packaging, consistency and high-quality, natural ingredients (avoidance of corn syrups and refined sugar), but the side-effect is a unexpectedly strong honey taste. Once again, natural vs flavor beat each other up in this BBQ Death Match. 

The story behind Fork N Halo It all started around 15 years ago when Al Silverman, the founder of the company, turned his love of cooking to the art of making authentic slow smoked BBQ. Cookin’ the ribs, the brisket and the pulled pork was the easy part but… he couldn’t find a bbq sauce that did the meat justice. He knew how he wanted the sauce to taste, but couldn’t find one that he liked. He decided to make his own from scratch. He wanted it to be all natural, fat free, without any corn syrup or refined sugar. Also no artificial additives, flavorings and definitely no MSG! So off he went to the kitchen to create his sauce.

Al’s BBQ sauce soon became very popular with his family, friends, co-workers and neighbors. They were always saying “This bbq sauce is wicked good, can I have the recipe?” or “Hey Al, you ought to sell this sauce!” The idea of starting a company, selling bbq sauce, was the farthest thing from his mind. He was happy just to have folks enjoy his sauce.

But, so many people were asking for it, Al decided that it was time to let the world enjoy the unique flavor of his bbq sauce. So Al, and his wife Darlene, started the “WICKED GOOD BBQ COMPANY” in the fall of 2006. Then after a few recipe enhancements, two additional flavors, and many, many name changes “FORK ‘N HALO” sauces were born.

Well that doesn’t sound like a death match, does it ? On to the review!

The Initial Smell/Aroma

Initial sniff – a fairly traditional sweet, tomato-based sauce.

Sniff again – Mmm is that … honey?? Why yes, yes it is. Molasses, vinegar, and honey all working together on the olfactory senses. At this stage, as Martha Stewart says, it’s a good thing.

Consistency

Like most highly natural sauces, it’s a bit on the thin side. Therefore you’re damned if you do, and you are damned if you don’t (when speaking about the use of all-natural ingredients). It did have a good look and good response/movement in and out of the bottle. Look and feel is BBQ’escue.

Before Cooking Flavor

My thoughts are that I wanted to like this sauce and overlook the taste factor, but it couldn’t happen. Its good, but has a very strong, almost overpowering honey-sweetened flavor. For people who love honey in their tea/coffee, this is could hit the spot for you. But let’s say you like coffee. If you woke up one day and went to your coffee shop (in New England its Dunkin Donuts Country) and asked for a medium regular, you’d get cream and sugar. Now if they started putting Sweet and Low or Equal or honey in there instead (without telling you), you’d be a little surprised*. This is what seemed to happen here. Remember it’s tasty and not a bad sauce at all, its just ‘different’.

* Sidenote. Recently, I think I finally uncovered one of the universes largest secrets!! – the sweetness ratios for Equal, Sweet and Low, and Sugar.

(1) Equal = (2) Sweet and Low = (4) Tablespoons Sugar. In Mathematical Terms, it’s called Hendu’s Theorem.

Can I patent that and make a few $$ so I can stop harrassing BBQ sauce vendors? Probably not. Oh well, back to the review my friends.

After Cooking Flavor

After grillage – I used some chicken wings (skin on) – it still retains the strong honey flavor which was expected. Some of the sweetness mellows out after cooking, which leaves you with a more traditional flavor, but the honey is very strong – almost to the point of novelty.

Taste is really number one as far as the reviews on this site, so I have to dock some points here. Again, this isn’t necessarily bad – the negative part comes from the unexpectedness of the honey BANG.

Another side note to illustrate my point. Growing up in Massachusetts, where cranberries are native and I’m used to driving by the bogs on the way down to summer vacations at Cape Cod, I’m very familiar with a little company called Ocean Spray. A friend of mine had a mother that worked there, and she used to bring home cases of “canning rejects,” which were juices that had the wrong label on them. So you’d crack open a cran-apple, only to start chugging a grapefruit flavored beverage. Weird stuff. But fun back then. My point is that I never saw flavor of those Ocean Spray rejects coming my way, but those were mistakes. In this sauce, I never saw the honey coming at me, when it could/should be taken into consideration in the marketing of the sauce. Stick a BBQ-ing bee on the label, perhaps. Consulting services = free.  🙂

Ingredients

Tomatoes, evaporated cane juice, unsulfured molasses, red wine vinegar, pure honey, apple juice concentrate, kosher salt, mustard powder, paprika, black pepper, jalapeno pepper, xanthan gum. Al – Props for using excellent ingredient choices!

Nutrition

Calories 60
Total Fat 0g
Cholesterol 0g
Sodium 420mg
Carbs 15g
Protein 0g

All Natural. Fat free. No MSG. A sauce made with health in mind.
Marketing and Packaging

Looks great, professional, glass bottle, wide mouth, cool logo. Memorable and stands out on the shelf. My only suggestion would be in matching the taste with the name. I think this line of products should have the word Honey in big neon letters. Health conscious folks should flock to this!

Related Website

www.wickedgoodbbq.com

Site Editor, BBQ Sauce Lover, Family Guy, Hi Tech Marketer by Day. He recently wrote the Ebook “How to Market Your BBQ Sauce” which can be purchased on this site.

Google+ 

Leave a Reply

seo packagespress release submissionsocial bookmarking services