I'm Feeling Saucy!

I guess I have seen one too many commercials for a certain restaurant chain's Whiskey River BBQ Burger recently. Oh, and the kicker? There are no franchises of this chain within 75 miles of me. Why do they insist upon tempting me so? The shameless flirts.

Finally I had had enough, so I began surfing the web - hey, watch me hang ten! - er, anyway, I searched for a suitable Whiskey Barbecue Sauce that would ease my commercially-induced cravings. This is what I ended up with: The Bourbon Whiskey Barbecue Sauce. The only ingredient I did not have on hand was the Liquid Smoke, but I easily solved that while I was at my local grocery store today. Oh, and I also didn't feel like chiseling off a bit of tomato paste from my frozen block that I keep in the freezer, so instead, I subbed a bit of jarred spaghetti sauce. I am sure that we will somehow survive my horrible attempt at Semi-HOing this sauce. And now, on with the show...

These are the ingredients for the barbecue sauce. I chose to make a half-recipe this first time out of the gate. Now, before you give me some lip, bourbon is simply whiskey that comes from a certain area of Kentucky.

First, we saute the onion and garlic in the whiskey. It takes about 10 minutes over medium heat for the onions to become translucent.

After the onions have reached the desired state of being, I add the remaining ingredients.

The sauce is brought to a boil and then the heat is reduced to a mere simmer. The sauce must endure this state of being for 20 minutes. Set the timer, go off, scoff at Sandra Lee making a mockery of the art of cooking, save the world, whatever floats your boat...

The recipe states that if I prefer a smoother sauce, I can strain it to remove the solids. Now, in my book, this would also remove much of the flavor from the onions, so I decided to swerve from the recipe (big surprise, that!) and chose instead to puree the slightly cooled sauce in my blender.

And we have sauce! My daughter commented that this sauce had an unexpected, but not unwelcome, backdoor kick. My dear, picky husband even liked it. Now, that is indeed high praise.