Original BBQ Sauce
Like my original rub/seasoning, I tried many different store brands to find what I liked the best. Simply put, I really like BBQ sauce and I did not dislike any of them… One day I decided to try and make homemade BBQ sauce and it blew me away, it was perhaps the best one that I ever had, which made it extremely hard to go back to store brands. One surprising item for me when I started making my own BBQ sauce was how much sugar there was in the recipe. It got me thinking that perhaps I could substitute our family made maple syrup into the BBQ sauce recipe instead of the sugar. I did not know that my BBQ sauce could get better, but it sure did, and my
boys and I loved it. I would constantly be asked by my sons, “Dad, did you make more BBQ sauce?” It sure was hard to keep it around the house. The recipe that I made at home for my boys is the same recipe in the original BBQ sauce today, a fantastic balance of sweet, savory, and spicy. This sauce is not boring.
Honey BBQ Sauce
Having bees on our farm, attended to by my Father, we always had plenty of honey around. And as you might have suspected that too made its way into my BBQ sauce also as an alternative to sugar. The honey BBQ sauce is not any sweeter than the original, just a different flavor experience. The biggest difference is that the honey BBQ sauce has no spice to it for those who
do not prefer or cannot handle/have spicy food. A fantastic balance of sweet and savory without any heat.
Roasted Red Street Sauce
Interestingly, I found Roasted Red Street sauce while I was working on a hot sauce. Surveying opinions from numerous friends and family it became exceedingly clear that the flavor of the sauce was more important than the spicy heat.
Around that same time, a friend shared with me his homemade pepper sauces, peppers fresh from his garden. One in particular stood out to me, a yellow bell pepper sauce with fantastic pepper flavor – with no spicy heat!! His sauce literally wowed me, and inspired me to make a the fire roasted red bell pepper sauce, called Roasted Red. Not only is it a versatile sauce for those looking for flavor and no spicy heat, but it also became the starting point to make other Charles Street Flavors street sauces.
Black and Red Street Sauce
Starting with the flavorful base of Roast Red Street Sauce, it was easy to introduce spice (heat) and other flavors. Two surprisingly uncommon ingredients that I experimented with were black garlic and red jalapeno. Adding these flavors to the fire roasted red bell pepper base created a distinct flavor that was a home run for those who like a little heat in their street sauce. So, it was an easy decision to add the flavor to the Charles Street Flavors street sauce line-up.