PC Smokin' Stampede Beer & Chipotle Barbecue Sauce - Sauce Review

Last summer while visiting the folks, my dad did some ribs on the BBQ, and the sauce he put on it was excellent. The sauce came in this giant one litre bottle which looked like a giant beer bottle almost. It was spicy, and full of flavour. Flash forward to this past spring and I see the same bottle, on sale, and I can't hesitate buying it. And for at least 1-2 months its just sat on the shelf, not being used. There was also 24 wings sitting in the freezer, forgotten, so two and two together, and I decided it was going to be a spicy bbq chicken night.

Oh, the name of that sauce was PC Smokin' Stampede Beer & Chipotle Barbecue Sauce. I nominate them for longest name ever. I'll just call it B&C from here on in.






B&C - beer and chipotle eh? What's not to like? Well, I don't drink beer, but it can be good in BBQ sauce and chili and fish batter. And there's a cowboy on the bottle, that makes the name stampede more sense.


Pretty generic claims about the sauce. 'Bold' and 'flavourful' could be any bottled hot sauce on the market.

I thought it was quite an interesting ingredient mix, some of the more eye grabbing ingredients including: coffee, beer, bourbon. Chipotle was in there (as spices mix), but the first three ingredients are sugar, water and tomato paste. The sauce also said one chile of heat, which was surprising to me because the sauce I had had a bite and this looked like it was going to be more savory than spicy.


The plan had been to bbq these wings. But dark clouds and strong winds meant I was going to oven bake them [I really miss my deep fryer, sitting in storage. :( ] instead. LJ wasn't too crazy about BBQ sauce, so I seasoned half of them in THIS rub.

For my wings, I just sprinkled salt and brushed them with a little oil to help crisp them up. But I thought they looked pathetic on the rack, especially with their seasoned friends next to them. After I grilled them, I tossed the naked wings in the B&C and served them up in my tossing bowl.

2008 S SCORE v1.0: PC Smokin’ Stampede Beer & Chipotle BBQ Sauce

BOTTLE INFO
TYPE:	Spicy bbq sauce
PRICE & BOTTLE SIZE:	1 litre
SAUCES:	PC has so many
INGREDIENTS:	Sugar, water, tomato paste, white vinegar, salt, spices (contain chipotle peppers), brown sugar, modified corn starch, canola and/or soybean oil, natural flavour, onion and garlic powder, caramel colour, coffee, beer, tamarind extract, bourbon, mustard flour, xanthan gum
CLAIMS/SLOGANS:	“A bold and flavourful sauce with a touch of smokiness, ideal for chicken, ribs, pork and beef” -One chili heat mark
WEBSITE:	Presidentschoice.ca
THE SENSES
APPEARANCE /TEXTURE:	-thick -dark
SMELL:	-smokey, tomato and I say coffee, but that’s might be because I read coffee in the ingredients
FLAVOUR:	-see above with a hint of spice
THE PAIN
HEAT:	I can sense heat, but not really	0/3
BURN CHRONOLOGY:	Beginning Burn Middle Burn After Burn
TASTE:	Very tasty, a great BBQ sauce	3/3
FINAL SCORE		3.5/6
OTHER:	There may not be any heat, but it’s a damn good sauce

The sauce looked so good, pouring out of the bottle, slow, thick. It looked even better on the wings. It was gooey, but not too sticky. It had the perfect texture for a BBQ sauce in my opinion.



The sauce was good - really good. But there was not heat. At all. I couldn't understand it, because the heat on my fathers ribs (which I had again about 2 weeks ago) had a good bite to it, and I know he didn't add anything. What was going on?

I went to the PC website and searched their condiments, where I found my mistake. I grabbed the big bottle of BBQ chipotle sauce without really looking at it, when what I wanted was THIS, PC Smokin' Habanero Barbecue Sauce. I grabbed the wrong sauce!!! And it is rated two chili's in heat. Dang.

Below is a shot of LJ cutting into her wings. Yes, she uses a knife and fork. But she's eating the wings and that's the important thing.

On a side note from the sauce, I really did not like the wings. The skin wasn't crispy, the meat was rubbery - I hated them. I kept wanting to have the sauce, but I didn't want the chicken. LJ's spiced wings were more tender, but it reinforced the important lesson to never freeze wings again. It's fresh or bust.

Because of these terrible wings, I swapped some of the spiced wings and tossed them in the BBQ. Better, but not by much. The chicken that is. The BBQ sauce tasted good.




FINAL SCORE: While I got the wrong sauce, and this wasn't spicy, it was a really good bbq sauce. It's got everything a non-hot bbq sauce should have: texture, thickness, smokiness and bold flavour. Yes, the bottle may not have been original in describing their sauce, it was dead on.
3/6

PC Smokin' Stampede Beer & Chipotle Barbecue Sauce
Presidentschoice.ca