Did you know that May is National BBQ Month? I had no idea until Four Roses let me know. In celebration of #NationalBBQMonth I mixed up a tasty honey bourbon BBQ sauce. This is a very mild full flavored sauce perfect for any kind of grilling. I cooked a few chicken drumsticks and rubbed this honey bourbon BBQ sauce all over it for dinner this week. This is some good stuff!
BBQ Sauce is actually pretty simple to make and there are so many ingredients you can play around with. I wanted kick things up, so I added a little Four Roses single barrel Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey to the mix. Four Roses bourbon has a really great flavor and smooth finish. It’s pretty fun to cook with too.
To start out my BBQ sauce I chopped up an onion. It doesn’t need to be perfect. You can either blend in the onion to the BBQ sauce after cooking or leave it rustic and chunky like I did here. Get your onions and garlic cooking with a little olive oil and add in the bourbon so there is time for it to cook down.
While the onion bourbon mixture cooked, I gathered my remaining ingredients and mixed those in a separate bowl first. Ketchup or tomato paste is needed to get things going and the rest is mostly flavor.
I added brown sugar and honey for sweetness, a little sriracha for heat and worcestershire for salt. Vinegar is also key. Some people like to use apple cider vinegar but I think white vinegar works just fine too. Then just salt and pepper to taste. I seem to like a lot of pepper.

Honey Bourbon BBQ Sauce #NationalBBQMonth
Ingredients
- 1 Chopped White Onion
- 1 1/2 tbs. Chopped Garlic
- 2 tbs. Olive Oil
- 1/2 Cup Four Roses Bourbon
- 2 Cups Ketchup or 6 oz can of Tomato Paste
- 1/2 Cup Honey
- 1/2 Cup Light Brown Sugar
- 1/2 Cup White Vinegar
- 1/4 Cup Worcestershire Sauce
- 2 Teaspoon of Hot Sauce (Sriracha)
- Salt and Pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Saute onion, garlic, olive oil and bourbon.
- Bring to a boil then reduce to simmer.
- Simmer until onions soften or about 10 minutes.
- Season with salt and pepper.
- In a separate bowl combine the remaining ingredients.
- Add to saute mixture.
- Bring to a boil then reduce to simmer.
- Simmer for 30 minutes or more.
I hope you love this Honey Bourbon BBQ Sauce! Enjoy!
I received samples of Four Roses Bourbon and ingredients from Whole Foods. All opinions are my own.
This sounds lip smacking delicious!
Thank you Barbara!
I love that you added sriracha to it! I’ve never made my own bbq sauce but you make it look simple and yummy!
Thanks Xenia! I often forget how easy it is to make a tasty sauce. I will have to do it more often.
YUM!
Thanks Mary!
Great sauce! I can just imagine it slathered all over my grilled meats this summer 🙂
Sounds like you’ll be doing a lot of grilling!
I love making homemade sauces! And this one looks super tasty 🙂
Thanks Brandon!
I like the ketchup option over the tomato paste since I don’t usually have that on hand! Are you still working on the recipe since there are a few question marks left in the ingredients list?
Yeah I hear ya! I don’t know why those question marks were showing. I had a problem with the recipe plugin recently so maybe it had a glitch. All fixed now. Enjoy!
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