The Competition That Birthed One Of America's Favorite BBQ Sauces

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When does a barbecue sauce go from a neighborhood favorite to a grilling sensation? For Sweet Baby Ray's, it all began with an entry into one of Chicago's iconic food competitions: the Mike Royko Rib-Off. (That's what the company's website calls it, though other sources refer to it as a "Ribfest.") In the early 1980s, Mike Royko bragged in his newspaper column — perhaps facetiously — that his family's ancestral rib sauce recipe was the best of all time. Challenged to prove it, he organized his first Ribfest in 1982. Throughout the rest of the decade, it not only brought hundreds of competitors but also brought the community together.

Chef Larry Raymond and his brother Dave, who earned the nickname Sweet Baby Ray while playing basketball growing up, actually competed twice. In 1982, the judges were late, and the brothers ended up burning their ribs. In 1985, however, the Raymonds won second place, and the brothers decided to join the sauce business. Four decades later, Sweet Baby Ray's is now the top-selling barbecue sauce in the country, according to data from Instacart (via Food & Wine).

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According to the company's website, the motto for Sweet Baby Ray's is "The sauce is the boss," and that's still true even after the brand expanded from one sauce to more than 30 flavors (12 of which we've ranked from worst to best). In those early years, one key ingredient added a kick to the recipe: tabasco sauce.

"It is a unique blend of sweet, hot and smoke designed to complement food flavor and not dominate it. Used straight from the fridge it is spicier, but milder when heated," Larry Raymond told The Chicago Tribune in 1990, adding that the recipe included brown sugar to add a little sweetness. Now, the original recipe is rounded out by a full line of products to satisfy every palate, from a no-added-sugar variety to Hawaiian, Buffalo-style, mustard, and garlic flavors.

Back in 1985, Mike Rokyo published a "painful report" about that year's Ribfest results in the The Chicago Tribune, describing the winner as a "yuppie" who lucked out when he took the place (and sauce recipe) of a friend who'd entered the competition but had to leave town on business. The column makes no mention of Larry and Dave Raymond's second-place finish, but Sweet Baby Ray's has made up for this, from its humble beginnings to its rise to the top of the nation's barbecue sauce rankings.