The secret to making good barbecue at home is to dab (or, if you’re struggling, varnish) what you cook with someone else’s brilliant sauce. As long as you’re not cranking out hockey pucks, you can rest on the shoulders of Three Little Pigs Competition BBQ Sauce. Recipe wiz Chris Marks has parlayed a victory at the Jack Daniel’s World Championship barbecue sauce contest into a franchise restaurant in Crown Center and a line of sauces and rubs. It’s his 20 years of tweaks on a family recipe that make this sauce sing. The sweetness of molasses and dark-brown sugar are rounded out by garlic, white vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. There’s heat from a cayenne mash in the finish, along with smoke flavoring. The result is a well-balanced sauce that’s the rarest of breeds: a silky red blanket that sweet- and heat-heads alike can appreciate.
