Never discuss politics or religion in polite company,” my mother used to say. She could have added “barbecue” to the list—that oh-so-controversial (regional interpretations vary widely) main course that most folks in the Southeast will at least agree consists of pork that is pit-cooked low and slow over hardwood embers. Now whether the best wood is oak, pecan, hickory or apple is a subject of hot contention. And if you really want to stir a debate, say “barbecue sauce.”

In eastern North Carolina, it’s red, hot and puckery with vinegar. In South Carolina, some sauce is bright yellow and loaded with mustard. In parts of Alabama, it’s thick, white and mayonnaisey. In Georgia, many sauces are sweeter than honey, and some are bright orange. In Florida, the distinctive datil pepper, imported by Spanish settlers in the late 1700s, kicks things up a notch.

As more restaurants offer half a dozen sauces and with grocery stores stocking scores of them, it’s no wonder consumer confusion can result. Hence, this five-state primer on the basics of traditional barbecue sauce. Yet unlike other stories in which your taste buds are whipped into a frenzy that can only be satisfied by a road trip, most of the sauces mentioned here can be ordered by phone or online. So tuck a big napkin under your chin and prepare to pig out.

As hard as it may be for this native North Carolinian to admit, the first traditional “all-American” barbecue dinner was probably served in the Tidewater region of southeastern Virginia, and without either of today’s standard side dishes—
hushpuppies and cole slaw.

“Almost any event was an occasion for feasting in Virginia,” writes Robert F. Moss, author of Barbecue: The History of An American Institution (University of Alabama Press, 2010). “A marriage, a christening, Christmas, Easter, and visits from family members—or from anyone else for that matter.” The Virginia Company introduced pigs to Jamestown in 1607, and by 1609 the colonists had a herd of some 600.

Which is not to say that barbecue sauce originated in the Old Dominion. In fact, Tidewater barbecue was pit-cooked without sauce, although it was basted with loads of butter, plus salt, pepper and sometimes vinegar. Dousing the pork to keep it from drying out is an old trick that pit masters refer to as “mopping.” And the pre-sauce that’s liberally applied is called “dip” (pronounced “DEE-yup” where I come from).

Offering extra sauce after the meat is cooked seems to be a tradition that got its start in eastern North Carolina. One day someone who liked it hot put a bowl of vinegar-and-pepper dip on the table and started what has become a $350 billion industry. “It’s the best ye ever tasted,” declares the label on Scott’s Barbecue Sauce from Goldsboro (www.scottsbarbecuesauce.com, 919-734-0711). Scott’s was dreamed up, literally, by the Rev. Adam Scott, who had a vision of his heavenly concoction in 1917. “Vinegar, salt, peppers and spices,” says the label—and “Red Hot.” Believe it.

Farther west, German settlers added tomatoes to sweeten things up. Hill’s Lexington Barbecue (336-767-2184)—which is actually in Winston-Salem—makes a characteristically thin, vinegary sauce with less pepper and a little more sugar than you’ll encounter closer to Lexington proper, but it’s available by mail. Sauces from throughout the Tar Heel State, like all others, have sweetened up over the years, with the aptly named Short Sugar’s from Reidsville being as black as molasses and almost as sweet. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Moss tells us, barbecue spread “southward through the Carolinas and into Georgia and across the Appalachians . . . following the main pattern of southern settlement.”

South Carolina Barbeque Association president Lake E. High Jr. proudly points out that his state has four distinct varieties of sauce. The oldest, found along the coastal plain around Kingstree, features vinegar and peppers, not unlike that in North Carolina’s coastal plain. A mail-order version is hard to find, Lake says, but Bull Hawgs Sauce, from Pauline, fits the bill (www.bullhawgsbbq.com, 864-585-7222). The Palmetto State boasts two tomato-inflected sauces—one that’s thin, with just a little ketchup, and another that’s thicker, with loads of ketchup. Q2U Original Sauce, from Lake Wylie (www.q-2-u.com, 803-831-8883), is thin and tomato-based but tangy and with the slightest hint of clove. Uncle Pete’s from Simpsonville is smoky, dense with spices and thick with tomatoes (www.unclepetesbbqsauce.com, 877-227-5032).

Last but not the least controversial is clearly South Carolina’s most enduring contribution to barbecue, mustard sauce—“the product of the state’s considerable German heritage dating to the 1700s,” Lake says. Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it, especially a refined version like West Columbia’s Carolina Gold Classic (www.gourmetcarolinagold.com, 888-990-0993).

Commercial barbecue sauce is a fairly recent product. The first known mention of one was in 1909 in an Atlanta newspaper article touting “the finest dressing known to culinary science.” Says Jim Auchmutey, a longtime food writer who’s putting together his second book on barbecue, “When it comes to barbecue, Georgia is a real crossroads. There are lots of different styles. When you’re around Savannah, you’ll find some mustard in the sauces. That’s a holdover from South Carolina. Johnny Harris’ Original sauce is a good example,” he says (www.johnnyharris.com, 912-354-7810). “A lot of the traditional sauces you’ll find in north Georgia [contain] ketchup and have a very pronounced vinegar twang.”

In Newnan, the sauce served at Sprayberry’s Barbecue is representative (www.sprayberrysbbq.com, 770-253-4421).  It’s thin and tangy from vinegar, with a spice bite that catches up with you. Like it sweet? Try the sauce from Holloway’s Pink Pig, way up in mountainous Cherry Log (www.budspinkpig.com, 706-276-3311). It’s peppery, aromatic and addictive.

In parts of Alabama, especially north-central, the sauce happens to be white, which certainly helps it stand out in a crowd; it appeals in particular to fans of tangy, peppery concoctions. Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q in Decatur is the epicenter of white sauce (www.bigbobgibson.com, 877-350-0404).

“There is a distinct east Alabama sauce that is very orange, very vinegary, with a strong complement of mustard,” says Jake Adam York, a poet and essayist who has written on barbecue for the Southern Foodways Alliance. It’s nothing like the South Carolina variety, he notes, and it’s best typified by Byron’s Smokehouse in Auburn. Byron’s doesn’t ship sauce, but the sauce from Dreamland, in Vestavia, is similar (www.dreamlandbbq.com, 800-752-0544).

Finally, York says, the sauces served in and around Birmingham are in a whole separate category, influenced by generations of Greeks running many of the barbecue joints. “They usually have spices you might recognize in a chili recipe,” he says. Unfortunately, neither Demetri’s, in Homewood (www.demetrisbbq.com), nor Birmingham’s Jim ’N Nicks Bar-B-Q ships sauce, but the latter has locations throughout the Southeast (www.jimnnicks.com).

You may not think Florida has any traditional, native sauces, but you’d be very wrong. Rob Bagby, president of the Florida Bar-B-Que Association (FBA), recommends Everglades Moppin BBQ Sauce, from Sebring (www.evergladesseasoning.com, 800-689-2221). Smoky and made with Florida onions, it has a sweet, tropical tang.

Near Jacksonville, two chains that have been around for decades—Bono’s Pit Bar-B-Q (www.bonosbarbq.com, 904-880-8310) and Woody’s Bar-B-Q (www.woodys.com, 866-285-6448)—offer a distinctive mustard sauce. “That sauce is  unique to [this part of the state],” says FBA secretary Gary Blevins. “It has a light, mustardy flavor with more of a vinegar bite, and it’s spicy without being overpowering.”

The nation’s oldest city, St. Augustine, just might be home to the nation’s oldest sauce, made with datil peppers, which flourish in northern Florida. They enliven a host of sauces, but none as subtly and engagingly
as Raz L’ Datil of Green Cove Springs (www.pepperproducts.com; 904-284-8144).

A mixture of raspberries, honey and butter, among other things, Raz L’ Datil is a favorite of Steve Craig, whose www.datilpower.com is devoted to spreading the word about datil peppers. “Raz L’ Datil is absolutely magic. I’ve tried at least 3,000 sauces, and it’s as good as anything I’ve ever had.”

But you can have too much of a good thing, says Blevins. “Go to any barbecue joint in America, and watch when the plate hits the table. Before they ever taste anything, customers are slopping sauce all over it.” A real shame, he says, if the pit master has spent hours cooking. Then again, a good sauce can turn mediocre home-cooked ribs into pretty good ’cue. With one of these time-tested sauces, you won’t be able to make pigs fly, but you’ll probably be able
to serve barbecue that will fly off your guests’ plates.

A baker’s dozen—barbecue lovers all of us—gathered one afternoon to enjoy some ’cue, hushpuppies and cole slaw and to rate nearly a dozen sauces from North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Alabama. We hailed from different places, including Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Maryland, Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. It was a thankless and demanding task, of course, but somebody had to do it. Here are the top vote getters from each of the five states.—D.B.