Charlie's Sticky Sauce, a new BBQ condiment to arrive in various locations throughout and surrounding our fair city, certainly lives up to its name. "Sticky" is what happens when one of the key ingredients is sugar. For anyone who likes their grill sauces and dips with a hard sweet kick to the palate rather than just a plain ol' kick, then the line of Charlie's Sticky Sauce sauces is tailor-made for them. And the wallet of their dentist.
Available in 'Original', 'Mid-Evil' (Hah!), and 'Stupid Hot' (Oh stop! My ribs! I mean it!), my barbecue-loving pals and I actually found the 'Original' strength to be more inflammatory than the 'Mid-Evil' (which is very hoi-sin-esque). We began sampling each one straight out of the bottle and licking off our grubby little fingers (hey, we're food-lovers – not scientists). All three intensities pack quite a punch in terms of heat, but none is lip-blistering. The 'Stupid Hot' was maybe a tad mouth-numbing – not painful (my friends and I are relatively fire-proof) – but there's enough caliente in this one to potentially knock out the flavour of the food it's attempting to enhance if one goes too far with it straight up.
I would be tempted to mix some of this with mayonnaise and a squeeze of lime and serve it up with some grilled jumbo shrimp. On its own, it would make a great dip for some appetizer meatballs or grilled chunks of any hearty sausage. I'm also looking forward to trying this out as a dip for grilled cheese sandwiches or some French fries; any place where ketchup might be considered too weenie, Charlie's Sticky Sauce definitely ups the ZDDQ (zippity-doo-dah quotient).
Charlie's website includes a few recipes. It would have been nice to see more, and here's hoping there will be in the future. While the Sticky Beans recipe is a tempting read, the chili recipe, however, scares me just a little. A whole bottle of sauce for what looks to be a 4 to 6-serving recipe (it isn't specific – I'm just taking a guess) comes across as overkill in terms of pushing the product. Friendly note to Charlie and his Sticky Sauce Crew: sometimes less is more - when it comes to barbecue sauces, I like my ribs tickled, not shivved to the hilt. But I won't hesitate to add a few generous tablespoons of Charlie's Sticky Sauce to my own chili recipe. And my meatloaf. And my cabbage rolls.
On the grill, the firemaster friend of mine slapped it on chicken and some flank steak. The chicken had been marinating all day and night in a secret mixture (the firemaster discloses nothing), but it blended very nicely with the bold flavours of the Sticky Sauce (Mid-Evil on the chicken; Original on the steak). On both meats, the sauce crusted nicely, but keep a watchful eye on the flame action – all that sugar can char quickly if the heat is too high or if it's applied too early in the cooking process, turning a lovely dead animal meal into a big blackened mess of backyard grill-kill. Hey, there is always the option to add more of Charlie's Sticky Sauce when the food gets to the table. And chances are very good that anyone who has tried the stuff will want to.
