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Comment by johnnyletrois | Hacker News Reader

My wife is Swedish and her family live in Sweden, but we live in the US. Every year we ask them what they want us to bring them when we make our annual pilgrimage to the homeland. My brother in law wanted bbq sauce, so my wife bought six bottles of sweet baby rays sauce. She took a photo of the bottles and sent it to him. He laughed because sweet baby rays is available in Sweden at a lot of the grocery stores. So she went back to the store and bought six bottles of Stubbs. On our last day in Stockholm I was at the grocery store and saw a new display for Stubbs. Can't win.

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Rufus Teague made some sauce. Pretty good, I like it better than Stubbs, and still obscure enough they might not have seen it.

Also, I think you could kill a bear with the bottle, so it might ship well.

Out of curiosity, any idea if Sweet Baby Rays sold in Sweden is first ingredient HFCS like it is here in the US? Or do other markets use actual sugar?

Some products in Europe do use glucose-fructose syrup, but in general things like Coca-Cola will have sugar (sucrose) in them. If the sauce is imported from the US, and isn't specially manufactured for European markets, I'd expect the composition to be the same.

Buy them this: https://www.amazon.com/Charlie-Rendezvous-Memphis-Original-S...

It's from Rendezvous in Memphis. Not the best barbeque in Memphis, but it's world-famous, and a good example of the style. It's impossible to find properly cooked Memphis style ribs outside of Memphis (you'll find it on menus, but it's always garbage). If you want a bbq sauce that's special and consistent, this works.

> can't win

You are buying national brands. Try something a little more local

Or even better, make some homemade! That way it is a guaranteed unique experience, and more authentic to the point anyway.

Bonus: You get to try something you've probably never done before

Easy recipe:

1 6oz can tomato paste

1 small can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

1 onion

a few cloves garlic

salt, black pepper, some cayenne

1/3 cup of each:

white vinegar

apple cider vinegar

molasses

brown sugar

Throw it all in a blender or food processor. Taste and balance salt/sugar/sour (note it will get sweeter on cooking). Bring to a simmer on the range for 10 minutes. Done.

Easier recipe: Mix ketchup, liquid smoke, and Sriracha. Don't cook or wait or any other funny dance. You'll get all of the same ingredients and flavors as above only with fewer...uhh...ingredients. No food processor required because Heinz, Huy Fong, and Colgin already did that part for you.

You do you but that sounds bright red and nowhere near as savory.

Kind of defeats the purpose of bringing something over to Sweden though as they could also do the same thing.

Hmm that's a good point. Maybe in portions of the America's you could have better access to certain of the raw ingredients, for example, high quality dried peppers from the south

Get some hot sauce or salsa instead. Tons of local brands.

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