BBQ sauce didn’t start as a brand. It started as a practical little trick — thin, sharp “mops” and basting sauces made to keep meat juicy and crowds happy. Some histories trace barbecue sauce roots back as far as the 17th-century American colonies, long before anyone was “launching a sauce” with a photoshoot and a brand deck.
But barbecue does what barbecue always does: it gets personal, it gets regional, and then it gets legendary. Eventually, the best local sauces stop living only at the pit… and start travelling home in bottles.
And if you want the best stories — the truly iconic BBQ sauce tales — you don’t start in the supermarket aisle. You start where the smoke lives: at restaurants and pit rooms that turned sauce into a reputation first, and a product second.
The Salt Lick is one of those places that doesn’t feel like a restaurant as much as a barbecue landmark. On their own site, they call it:
“The Texas Barbecue They Tell You About.”
That line is basically saying: you’ve heard the rumours — we’re the reason. And they’ve got the kind of heritage story that makes people believe the sauce has been passed down like family treasure. Their “Our Story” ties the roots of the business back into 1800s Texas migration history and family tradition.
This is how sauce becomes iconic: it’s not “a condiment,” it’s part of the experience. A bottle on the table that quietly turns into the third person at dinner.
Snow’s is famous for the ultimate barbecue flex: it’s only open on Saturdays, and it sells out when it sells out — often by midday.
Snow’s own history notes the first day of business as March 1, 2003, and the whole thing is built around Saturday ritual.
When a place becomes this kind of weekly pilgrimage, the sauce doesn’t need to shout. The crowd does it for them.
(If you ever want to understand barbecue culture in one sentence, it’s this: “We got here early because last week we didn’t.”)
Some sauces taste like barbecue. Stubb’s tastes like barbecue and a good night out.
Stubb’s story begins where you’d expect: the first Stubb’s Legendary Bar-B-Q opened in Lubbock in 1968.
But the part that made the brand unforgettable is the line that followed Stubb everywhere:
“Love & Happiness.”
It’s a ridiculous strapline in the best way. It’s not a flavour note — it’s a worldview. And it’s proof that the best BBQ sauce brands don’t just sell sweet, smoke, or heat. They sell a feeling: the backyard, the playlist, the people, the moment.
If you want a true “local legend” origin story, Alabama brings the chaos — and wins.
Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q is widely credited with creating Alabama white sauce in 1925.
That’s the sort of date that doesn’t just say “old.” It says: we’ve been converting sceptics for a century.
White sauce is iconic because it breaks the “tomato equals BBQ” assumption and still works. That’s barbecue heritage in a nutshell: not trying to please everyone, just trying to be right.
Even legends have a “before it was cool” phase. BBQ sauce began appearing as a commercial product early in the 20th century — one source notes the Georgia Barbecue Sauce Company advertising an early commercially produced sauce in 1909.
And Heinz is often cited as the first major company to sell bottled BBQ sauce in 1940.
Once sauce went national, it also went catchphrase:
Because if there’s one thing barbecue understands, it’s that confidence sells almost as well as smoke.
So how does all of this — Texas legends, Alabama cult classics, and bottle-era slogans — end up in Sheffield?
Because the path is always the same: a sauce starts as something made for your own pit, your own people, your own Saturday. Then someone wants to take that moment home.
That’s exactly where Smoke “Me, You, BBQ” sauce belongs — and the name nails the oldest truth in barbecue: it’s not really about the bottle. It’s about the moment. Two people. A plate. A little mess. A lot of happiness.
And if you want a strapline that actually fits barbecue (and not a boardroom), you already had it:
“Put the fork down — it’s time to get dirty.”
Honestly? It should make a comeback. Texas doesn’t do polite barbecue. Neither should you. The best sauce experiences are always a bit messy — and that’s the point.
Me. You. BBQ.
Now put the fork down.
