Jack Daniel’s barbecue sauces

As the barbeque season is well and truly upon us I was pleased to receive a couple of bottles of BBQ sauce from the good people at Jack Daniel’s. I got a bottle each of their classic full flavour smokey and the limited edition extra hot habanero. It goes without saying that both of these sauces would go great with chicken wings or used as a pouring sauce for pork ribs, after all that’s what BBQ sauces do best. But I wanted to try out something a little different and hopefully inspire you BBQ loving friends out there to mix things up a bit. First off was the smokey sauce. I decided that lamb would be a good bet, I mean after all when someone says ‘smokey lamb’ it kinda gets the mouth watering! I got a piece of lamb shoulder fillet as it has a good fat to meat ratio and I want to slow cook this to get all that wonderful smokey flavour right inside. Also I want this to cook out until it falls apart, you’ve heard of pulled pork and beef? Well this will be pulled lamb. I simply brushed over the lamb with some of the Jack Daniel's smokey sauce and set aside in the fridge for 2 hours.

So what about the extra hot habanero I hear you ask. Well I did have a good think about this and decided to go a bit leftfield, I decided on mackerel. Mackerel works great on a BBQ by itself, but it is also a fish with enough flavour to withstand a lot of chilli heat. I would usually get my fishmonger to fillet the fish, but this time I had a go myself. I think I did a pretty good job of it! Rather pleased with my knife skills I did the same as I had with the lamb, brush a good coating on the flesh side of the fish and put it in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Standing next to a hot BBQ in the sunshine I got the fish on first, skin side down. The skin contains lots of oil and can take some serious heat, I let it cook out for about 5 minutes before turning it to the flesh side for 2 minutes. It worked well and I’m pleased to say the Jack Daniel’s extra hot habanero sauce had a real kick to it. I have had too many experiences of things that say ‘hot’ on them only to let you down at the table. The extra hot habanero did the opposite, with someone taking a bite and saying ‘After a couple of seconds the proper stuff kicks in’ – that’s the magic of chilli!

  The lamb went on for the long haul. It ended up being around an hour and a half on the grill. Slow cooking on the cooler edge with the occasional searing in the red hot centre of the grill for extra charringly good flavour. This allows for the meat the slow cook through the middle while getting that oh so important BBQ layer to from on the outside. The result is both crispy and tender...now I don't know about you but that's what I call barbecue perfection!

As you can see from the picture the piece of lamb reduced in size considerably after all that time and it took its fair share of fire! But the smokey sauce held its own and gave a wonderful sweet crust to the meat. After letting the lamb rest for 5 minutes I tore it up and poured some more of the Jack Daniel’s smokey sauce over it. I was going to take a picture but the general consensus with the people I was with was that the lamb was to good to leave hanging around…it went in seconds! The Jack Daniel’s sauces are a great way to make any piece of meat an instant BBQ star. Don’t forget that you can also use it as a pouring sauce, my friends daughter was putting the habanero sauce on every burger she got her hands on. Check them out now, and don’t forget if you like it hot the habanero is limited edition! Remember to share below if you have tried any of the Jack Daniel’s range of BBQ sauces. Michael Robinson