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Multi-Review: Torchbearer Sauces “Honey BArbeQuE” Sauce
By admin | June 9, 2008 |
This all natural sauce, made with the finest of natural ingredients, has a full-bodied flavor. Sweet and rich with a strong flavor of clover honey and molasses, followed by the mild zing of chili peppers. As usual for TorchBearer Sauces product, no pepper extracts are used.
Honey BBQ has all the classic uses of a BBQ sauce.
On our website, we will sell it by the bottle at $ 4.99
~Vid from Torchbearers~
Reviewer 1…Buddah:
For those like Parker and ChileheadEd that just want to know whether or not I liked the product, here is the quickie version of the review for you. I loved this bbq sauce. You may now read the other reviews and have a nice day.
For the rest of you, I want to first tell you a little of what I didn’t like about Torchbearer’s first attempt at bbq sauce. I had a very had time trying to read the ingredient list. The label is all cartoony and weird just like all of their artistic labels, but the coloration interferes with trying to make out the miniature words of the ingredients.
Ingredients: Tomato Paste, Honey, Water, Brown Sugar, Apple Cider Vinegar, Molasses, Worcestershire Sauce, Yellow Mustard, Chili Pepper, Garlic Powder, Chili Powder, Lemon Juice, Oregano
The label is something else indeed and not only is the artwork weird but fun. There is also a story spread out in an unusual way. This is their gimmick, and it makes it a bottle to be passed across the dinner table with the family as each one takes their time reading the story about Jasper Tuscon and his trip to the slaughter house. You want to know the rest of the story, buy the bottle.
As I said before, I liked it. You can stop now, but I have a little more to complain about.
Torchbearer Sauces’ All Natural Honey Barbeque Sauce is just too thin for me as a barbeque sauce. As soon as I took it out of the box it was sent in, I saw it slosh around the bottle like a vinegarette salad dressing and I knew there was trouble. I am used to having my bbq sauce with a lot more thickness. It should pour out of the bottle slowly and stick to the food you slop it on unless they made it to be more like a marinade. We all have our preferences, and that is one of mine. For those that have read this far, well you can probably stop now because I really have nothing else bad to say about this bbq sauce. Well there is an “L” missing in the nutritional facts section in the word Calcium. I wasn’t looking for it, but it just popped out at me. Small stuff in my book.
Now let us talk about this product and why I would recommend it to people like me that like their bbq sauce thick. Although this sauce pours out too fast, the sweet flavor more than makes up for that flaw. There is a hint of fruit in it, and before I read the ingredients as I usually do after I take my first sampling, I would’ve sworn there were berries of some kind in it. When you pour the sauce onto food as I did on a Wendy’s Spicy Baconator and on a baked potato, you can see small chunks of something. I thought the pieces were really fruit, but they turned out to be pieces of tomato.
The burger was delicious, but the baked potato was a little off with the butter I had added beforehand. That was my first of two culinary mistakes, but once I got the butter out, I very much enjoyed dipping the skin with the bbq sauce. In fact, I couldn’t get enough of the sauce and poured more onto the burger than what you see in the pic. The other culinary disaster was when I attempted to slow cook some pork shoulder, which the guy at the supermarket told me would come out like shredded pork butt. Big mistake listening to that dweeb. I wasted too much of the honey bbq making that. The pork tasted like porkchops, and it was soft enough, but had way too much gristle and fat. When I dipped the pork pieces into more honey bbq it was all good once more. This stuff is addictive, and I nearly finished off the bottle before I got to sample it with chicken.
With one about 1 or 2 ounces left, my last taste test brought me to Whole Foods where I bought me some rosemary-lemon chicken with a side of green beans and mac n cheese. Whole Foods mac n cheese tastes awesome, but with the Torchbearer All Natural Honey Bbq poured on it, the mac n cheese went to a new level. The chicken I dunked into the remainder of the sauce and that worked as I knew it would. What a great way to finish off a bottle of bbq sauce.
Overall, this product surprised me. The taste made up for the thin liquid that comes out of the bottle. There are so many different kinds of bbq sauce on the market today, but this is a winner that needs more exploring. I do believe I have another bottle on the way, and I look forward to trying it out with some steak and I must get me some shredded pork next time around. I think this sauce would also make a sweet marinade. Thanks Vid for allowing TTF to review your new addition to award winning products. This is another winner!
Reviewer 2…Ethan:
I am a huge fan of barbecue and barbecue sauces. I’m not even that picky about my sauce. I’ve got my favorites, but I’ll happily chow down on some pork or chicken slathered with a run-of-the-mill store bought sauce. Getting the chance to try a new barbecue sauce is something I’ll never turn down. Previously, I had only tried a few of Torchbearer sauces at Jungle Jim’s last August, but I had never really eaten any. Well, this was my chance. Torchbearer’s labels are certainly original, I’ll give them that. They have lots of text on them in a font that I find extremely hard to actually read, so I don’t. I assume they say something quite funny, but I’m much more interested in the sauce.
I cracked the bottle open and inhaled. I have to say, this is one of the best-smelling barbecue sauces I have ever had. The sweetness was very obvious, along with that delicious barbecue smell. I tried the sauce on chicken a few times, prepared on both the indoor and outdoor grills, and on some grilled pork tenderloin. The chicken fixed on the indoor grill was my least favorite application of the sauce. I guess the sauce didn’t cook up as much, and the sugars didn’t caramelize properly, but the sauce ended up being too sweet for my tastes. However, on the outdoor grill, the flavor was quite good. I don’t know if I can fault Torchbearer for this difference or not. It may have simply been my cooking technique which is, admittedly, not the best. But right out of the bottle, this sauce is way too sweet for me. Once cooked, it loses some of that sweet edge and is much, much better.
Unfortunately, Torchbearer’s Honey BBQ sauce has virtually no heat whatsoever. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed here. I wasn’t expecting an extremely spicy sauce, but I wanted at least a little bite to my meals. So in the end, I finished off the bottle by basting meat grilled over charcoal, and then added another sauce for heat when the meal called for it. Is this sauce good? Yes, absolutely! But will it knock any of my favorites out of their regular rotation? It’s unlikely.
Reviewer 3…Hudd:
This is a new product for Torchbearer Sauces. They are located in Mechanicsburg, PA. They are the winners of 38 National Awards. Upon receiving the BBQ sauce, I went to their website, www.torchbearersauces.com . The website is very easy to navigate and it has a lot of fun descriptions of their other products to read. Prices are comparable to other sauces.
I enjoyed the labeling on the bottle. It’s quite busy but the focal point of the label gets to the point of what you have. The rest of the label has a fun little story printed on it.
Upon opening the bottle I’m hit with a very nice sweet aroma. My first thought is “this is going to be great in baked beans.” I also took a little fingertip taste from the bottle’s lid and it tasted just as good as it smelled. I went straight to the freezer and got out a package of center cut pork chops. I knew right away what the menu would be for this review.
The baked beans are in the oven as I type. I wish you could smell them. I can’t wait until they’re done. Chops will be going on the grill in a bit. Once they’re done they will be “slathered with this stuff” as stated in the little tale printed on the label.
Well, dinner is over. Had a small salad to start with and then come the baked beans and pork chops. The baked beans were as good as I expected. I used about half the bottle in them and diced up a small white onion and added a little garlic to them. The pork chops were very good “slathered in the sauce” I really liked the taste of this sauce on the chops. I will be buying this sauce again. I’m already craving boneless, skinless chicken breasts slathered in it. Another must do is pulled pork sandwiches. Man, I just finished dinner and I’m making myself hungry already.
I personally don’t use the 1-10 scale as most reviewers do. I will however tell you that I like this sauce a lot. The smell, flavor, consistency, and taste are all very good. I would recommend Torchbearer Sauces Honey Barbeque to anyone.
Reviewer 4…Justin:
I’ve been wanting to try some of the Torchbearer products for a while now although BBQ probably wouldn’t be what I would have ordered. If you have read some of my previous reviews, then you will know that I do enjoy BBQ sauce, but it takes a lot to impress me. There are a lot of great BBQ sauces at the local store much cheaper than it costs to buy online. So if it’s not a sauce that really stands out, I will stick with the cheap stuff.
Looking at the label you can tell it’s a Torchbearer product by the graphics, and the mad lib type story that wraps around the front of the label. I like the looks of the label with the cartoon character and the looks of the words, but if you actually read the story its kind of dumb (but in a funny dumb kind of way like all mad libs). Overall it’s a nice looking label.
The sauce itself is way to thin for a BBQ sauce. You can see in my pictures how it spread across the plate when poured in a single spot, and also how thin it is on the chicken nugget.
The flavor is good. I can’t read the ingredients on my bottle, but it is a sweeter sauce and I am pretty sure it has brown sugar and molasses to sweeten it up on top of the honey. The sweetness takes away from the boldness in the flavor of the sauce which to me is a bad thing, but it’s all about personal taste and whoever buys a honey BBQ probably likes there sauces sweeter than I do. It’s not hot at all, but I don’t think it was meant to be. I took a bottle to a family dinner and everybody there loved it. I expected someone to say something about it being to thin, but then again we where eating it on meatloaf so there was no dipping where we had to worry about it sticking to our food. After they all tried it, nobody had anything bad to say about it, and my mother in law even asked me where she could buy some. My Overall rating would be a 7/10. I think everyone else liked it a lot more than I did.
Overall I was happy with the product and look forward to trying and reviewing the rest of the line of Torchbearer sauces.
Torchbearer Sauces
Mechanicsburg PA 17050
United States
orders@torchbearersauces.com
1-717-697-3568
www.torchbearersauces.com
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Topics: General, Hot Product Reviews, Reviews | 15 Comments »
I would try this, I am especially impressed by the ingredient list. I do believe they are required to list the ingredients of the Worcestershire sauce though. Nice review guys!
Yes they are, the FDA reqquires it to be broken down (parenthetically). Recalls are no fun and very expensive! Plus the AP press release required draws lots of unwanted attention.
Nice reviews guys. I like the label on this product…very creative.
Vid – I’m looking forward to trying the sauce.
They will be at Weekend O’ Fire, so you try their whole lineup of award winning sauces.
Thanks my fellow reviewers, good work.
Thanks for the input Sam and CaJohn, Vid will have to look into that.
Hey guys, about the label. That is not the final label. So sorry for it being hard to read and all that. We are currently switching packaging and SOON (by the weekend of Fire I hope) will have our major products in 8oz woozy bottles. That’s right pourable and all that good stuff.
So the labels will be bigger (including this one) and easier to read. Just wanted to let everyone know that.
great review from everybody, i love reading what other people thought about the same sauce as me. good to hear from you ethan, you havent been around much. unless you post under a name i dont know you as or something.
MY SON LOVES THE SWEET SAUCE. I’LL HAVE TO GET SOME.
I’m looking forward to trying this sauce. I love the graphics and the creative stories on the labels.
hudd, i liked the company info. i went to there site but still didnt know that.
I’m glad your prices came down. Ed and I bought a bottle of the XX hot for 20.00 each about a year ago.
11.99 sounds way more reasonable
Nice review
when I get a bacon burger, I usually can’t help pulling the bacon off and eating it separately. The baconator of course has the bestest bacon, no wonder.
Now that’s funny! The Baconator has the Baconator’s bacon on it!
:lol: 
I actually wonder once where they got their bacon when I ordered one of those. Too funny!
Hey :nerd:, you gots mail :bro:!
Hey :nerd:, Thanks for condensing the review for me since I am “review reading challenged”.
I like the torchbearer hot sauces a lot and the guys who run the show are awesome too, we were on the same flights from the Fiery food show and they were great company! I can’t wait to try there new BBQ, sounds like it may just need a little “something” added to it to adjust the heat before use.
Ed did you get my message about your Golden Bbq sauce for W.o.F.?