This sauce is cool and hot. Cool because it’s tastes just a cajun seasoning turned into a BBQ sauce. It’s hot because of the same blend of spices that goes into a traditional “cajun” spice blend that you could get from McCormick’s or Penzey’s or from Willingham himself. Cajun spice is hot! As with most hot BBQ sauces, it cools down a bit after a session on the grill and becomes even more flavorful. Negatives from ingredients choices only. Lots of awards – from 1983 all the way through 2001. Won Best Sauce on the Planet from the American Royal Barbecue Competition in 2000.
Smell/Aroma
Hits you with a strong punch of cajun seasoning and tomato/vinegar. You can’t quite tell it’s going to be so hot as when it first hits your taste buds.
Before Cooking Flavor
It’s exactly as I described earlier – a very good cajun spice blend brought to life via BBQ sauce. Can be used for non-cooked applications just fine – if you don’t mind a little heat.
Consistency
Good texture, stick-to-it-ive-ness, and body. Great color, although artificial coloring was used. This affected the score slightly as well.
After Cooking Flavor
The heat softens and allows non-heat freaks to enjoy the cajun blend with a little heat. I’m thinking this could be the perfect sauce for cajun-style BBQ grilled shrimp. Grill up the shrimp until 80% done, then slather them with this stuff… finish the final 20%… wait a few minutes for them to settle and enjoy.
Ingredients
Water, distilled vinegar, sugar, tomato paste, salt, molasses, spices, coloring and contains less than 2% of the following: modified food starch, sodium diacetate, corn starch, garlic, MSG, onion, dextrose, horseradish, tomato powder, natural and artificial flavors, caramel color, malic acid, hickory smoke flavor, xanthan gum, citric acid, torula yeast, guar gum.
Nutrition
No High Fructose Corn Syrup, but some of the artificial flavors and preservatives (and MSG) are signs of a somewhat mass-produced product with an eye on cost versus quality.
Marketing and Packaging
Good stuff. Matter of fact listing of all awards, simple yet distinguished. Standard bottle shape. Plastic bottle.
Website and Details
http://www.willinghams.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.
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