Chuck's Honey BBQ/ Special Register Display/ $4.50

Many Midwesterners, especially those who have an insatiable urge for porcine dishes, enjoy barbecue sauce as a part of their usual diet. In fact, since Louis Maull started peddling his crimson cream out of a horse-drawn cart in St. Louis over a hundred years ago, Americans from coast to coast have experienced an altered palette, and different varieties of the sauce have become popular throughout our country. Until a few weeks ago, my personal favorite was Roberts County Pork Producers BBQ sauce, made famous at country rendezvous such as the Rosholt Area Threshing Bee and the Fort Sisseton Historical Festival. Well, times have changed and my tangy allegiances have shifted. Chuck's Honey BBQ Sauce now wears the crown as my number one.

Chuck Braun - who, I admit, is my second cousin - recently introduced a barbecue sauce to the northeast South Dakota market. I discovered it in the place of my own origin, Rosholt, S.D., which also happens to be Chuck's town of residence. Luckily it was Easter evening when I arrived back at my house at school with my new bottle; I had plenty of leftover ham, which became guinea pig meat. I quickly chose cheddar cheese and bread to be my companions on my local sauce, barbecue ham adventure. A few lighter options to avoid complicating any first impressions.

Some of the biggest names in sauce, such as Dorothy Lynch - my go-to - started small, like Chuck's current operation. (I used to be a Western French dressing fanatic, but some listed ingredients have put me off a bit.) According to the company website, Ms. Lynch and her husband lived in St. Paul, Nebraska, and in the late '40s they began mixing up what eventually grew to be the Dorothy Lynch Home Style Dressing enterprise. Thinking about it, the Braun family, which I am a part of through my mother, shares these Nebraskan roots. Maybe something in the soil down there has resulted in its residents' ability to craft a phenomenal liquid meal additive. Maybe not, but Chuck's is one heck of a sauce.

It hit my tongue easy and presented no huge initial surprises. But it was like a warm peanut butter bun or fresh toasted bagels topped with whipped berry sour cream - I wanted more and more. It didn't have the overly strong bang of a common Thai sauce, nor did it have the boring one-liner approach of a typically watery steak sauce. Chuck's was just right: Peppery, but not weak. Ketchupy, but not too tomatoey.

I am listening to the deep tracks station on satellite radio as I write this, and when I started, Eric Clapton's "Slunky" came punching through my TV speakers. The song's flavor shares many of the subdued yet strong qualities of Chuck's Honey BBQ Sauce. I had never heard this selection from Slowhand, but my exposure to it paralleled my primary time with Chuck's.

My only complaint? No background on the back of the container. A transformed, red racecar truck monster grill watches over Chuck's lawn in the summertime. He has one of the most impressive outdoor cookers a person could ever see; contextual facts so bad-ass should get some mention, if not a visual reservation on the packaging.

Since my pioneering test run with the sauce, I have added Chuck's to a buffalo burger, hamburger helper, and some minute steaks. It has yet to disappoint. Nice work, and keep it up Chuck. (Sorry, couldn't resist.) I intend to keep a stock around in my own cupboards, and I think all you out there in readerland should give it a try sometime, although you might have to travel to a town of 400 in South Dakota to buy a bottle.

- Mitch LeClair