BBQ Gifts for Men - Sauce Spices and Seasonings Sets Gift Packs - Backyard BBQ Pork Barrel BBQ Sauce Spice Seasoning 3 Rub Gift Pack

Very nice selection of BBQ sauces and spices. It was gifted to my son as a Christmas present. He loved it!

My kids were so excited to try this after seeing on shark tank. (And Barbara is our favorite shark!)I have to mark down for a couple reasons. First, they weren't transparent enough about their ingredients. I have a mustard allergy, and prior to ordering I read all the available information online to see which ones I could have. The vinegar sauce, the sweet sauce, and the rubs were supposed to be mustard free. Unfortunately when they arrived I found out ALL the sauces have mustard, and other potential allergens, like celery. I'm including a photo of the ingredients to avoid confusion for others.Also, several places they just say spices, without disclosing what they are. I understand they have secret ingredients, but we're living in an era where over 50% of children have allergies, so they need to be transparent.Another criticism, several of these sauces are too runny. My family likes the flavors, but coming from KC we like to use BBQ sauce for everything - grilling veggies, dipping fries, etc. When it's too runny, it's difficult to use.My last criticism is the "original" is supposed to be Kansas City style, and it's not. My Kansas City family and neighbors seem to like it, but the flavor, the texture, and thickness were foreign to everyone. That's not to say that people from KC aren't going to like it, but the consensus is that it's obviously an East Coast interpretation of KC BBQ.The sweet is actually closer to KC style than the original, but again, it's thin and too runny.The mustard flavor got rave reviews even among people who don't normally like mustard. But it's very sugary. It's like dijon mixed with BBQ. Surprisingly, I think this was the winner among all the flavors.The vinegar sauce is very watery, like pouring regular vinegar. It tastes like BBQ flavored malt vinegar. It's a bit sweet. You've got to like vinegar to like this.On the rubs, all of them are good, but all of them have a bit too much lemon peel for me.The chicken rub/spice has strong notes of rosemary and lemon. It doesn't have sugar. Again this is a bit foreign to a KC native, who expect to have the BBQ spices in the rub. It's not a BBQ rub, it's just normal flavors for a roasted / rotisserie chicken. It has very little sugar (KC BBQ rubs are notorious for adding too much sugar, sometimes 50% sugar). The chicken rub would be great on veggies as well.The steak rub/spice does have some spiciness, but not BBQ flavor necessarily. It's just a salty rub with a bit of smoked chilis. Besides salt and chilis, the dominant flavors are garlic, worcestershire, and lemon peel. This is gritty, has a LOT of texture, so plan around this.The last rub is the All American Spice rub. This is the only one that's actually a BBQ spice, and it's KC style as well. It's a bit salty, the first ingredient is salt. It also has a blend of peppers, paprika, and other spices that work great on the grill, or as a seasoning (sprinkle on french fries, baked potato, roasted veggies, etc). It's a bit heavy on the celery.

We've now tried every spice mix and sauce in this set. My personal favorite i n the mustard sauce. It's not anything like a yellow or traditional brown mustard. It similar to the mustard we'd get at a local BBQ restaurant, but I honestly like this one better. I've used it with chicken breasts and pork chops and liked it a lot. My next favorite is probably the vinegar... Worked pretty well on my veggies the other night, and it was also decent on pork chops. Ideally this would be more of a fish & chips vinegar, but we don't have that too often.As far as the BBQ sauces go, they have pretty good flavor, but are not the best I've had. My main complaint about them is they're a bit thin. When poured, they tend to run around the plate/food a lot. The original and sweet are very similar to each other with the original flavor being a bit more smokey so I prefer that one.The spice rubs are good. The kids like them because they don't have any heat like a lot of the rubs I use do. For me that's not great, but it makes for less complaining so I'll take the win. These probably fall on the top end of the spice rubs I've used. They added some flavor to the chicken breast and pork chops I had when I tried the sauces. Honestly I could have eaten the meat without the sauce, but was really wanting to try the sauces.... I have tried the spices on cooked broccoli and I will report that they worked well on there with the exception of the steak rub. I haven't used the steak rub on steak yet, but it has a smell similar to what I used to get on steaks at a local steakhouse.So to summarize. All good flavors, but I dislike the thinness of the sauces. I'd definitely buy the mustard and chicken rub again outside of the gift pack.

And that really sums it all up. The flavors in the sauces are good. The "Original" and "Sweet" pretty much taste the same with the "Original" having just a hint of heat. The "Mustard" was my favorite having some heat as well as that extra tang from the mustard.I did not try the "Carolina Vinegar" as it's *not* a "Sauce" but a marinade - it's very, very liquid.The others are thin as well, but not nearly as much as the "Carolina" variant. That means the "Original" and "Sweet" are too thin for being "Kansas City Style" sauces. KC sauces are thick, these are not. These are thin enough that if applied improperly they'll make your bun very soggy. They work better if applied during cooking (where the heat will thicken them appropriately) or mixed in with chopped/shredded meat after it comes off the grill and *before* you put it on a bun.The "rubs" are some rather standard blends of spices for somewhat specific uses. All can be used on just about any meat with good results. The spices are a bit too course to be properly called a rub but that's easily corrected with a spice mill.It's a "Gift Set" which means it's overpriced by at least 25%.If nothing else, it's a good way to sample the flavors from this company, which are fairly good. Just don't expect true rubs or thicker sauces.

I personally liked the flavor of the sauces and rubs but my husband is not a fan of mustard and vinegar which seems to be a common theme in the ingredients of this set. I didn't see all the ingredients listed on the site so you don't really know what you're getting. I along with my husband found the sauce to runny which leads it to get all over the plate on the other food. This meant we didn't use the full sauces because I don't want my corn or potatoes drenched in it at the bottom of the plate. The rubs were very delicious and my steak and chicken tasted so good. The definitely have some salt in them but that's to be expected. I give the rubs 4 stars but the sauces 3 due to them not be thicker. The whole idea of a bbq kit does make this a good gift.