Review: Grumpy’s Private Reserve Bold XX Bar-B-Que Sauce

Posted November 6, 2006 by Nick Lindauer

Award Winning BOLD XX: This is Grumpy’s original sauce. This sauce has a bit of a bite to it. Sweet up front with a spicy follow through. Bold XX is a well balanced sauce, that goes well with everything from French fries to shrimp and scallops.

Ingredients: Brown sugar, water, tomato paste, apple cider vinegar, hot sauce, liquid smoke, black pepper, cayenne pepper, spices, kosher salt, oriental hot mustard.

Bold XX is the flagship Private Reserve BBQ Sauce from the crew at Grumpy’s, followed closely by the Not So Bold & Good Night Loving versions. Grumpy’s come highly recommended by several chileheads, including Lisa of the Three Hot Tamales who dragged me over to the Grumpy’s booth at Zest Fest. That shows you how good Grumpy’s BBQ is, when other vendors are dragging folks to the booth to sample it.

Actual BBQing is impossible here in NYC but I came up with the closest thing I could – burgers. Specifically, turkey burgers – which if you’ve ever had, you’ll know they need a lot of help in the seasoning department. I made my turkey burgers stuffed with jalapeno peppers, cayenne peppers & gorgonzola cheese but yet they still lacked in flavor. That’s where the Grumpy’s Bold XX came in.

Grumpy's Private Reserve Bold XX BBQ Sauce

I covered my entire burger in the sauce (as you can see) and still found myself taking samples (swigs) out of the bottle. With brown sugar as the #1 ingredient, the sweetness of the sauce hits you first but that’s quickly backed up by the bold flavor of hot sauce and smoke. I would not by any means classify this as a sweet BBQ sauce – it’s much more of an all-around performer.

The heat is minimal, but has more of a presence then in the Not So Bold sauce – it’s just enough to make you mouth water for more.

I can just imagine how good this sauce would taste on some BBQed chicken fresh off the grill. In fact, the thought is so compelling, I’m going to make sure I bring a jar of this to the next BBQ we go to – just to test it out. If you’ve got a grill of your own, do yourself & your friends a favor by picking up a few jars of Grumpy’s before you BBQ. Be sure to tell Grumpy that the HSB sent you!