The Copper Pig BBQ House might be closed indefinitely for renovations, following a major fire to the neighbouring building, but they are still in business.
On Wednesday they fired up a portable barbecue on the front porch of Home Sweet Home Grocery and introduced the world to their in-house barbecue sauce, now for sale exclusively at the downtown food store.
Copper Pig owner Tyler Burbee and chef Jeff Vandooyeweert were cooking up local sausage (produced by Wolfe Farms in the Pineview neighbourhood, processed by Kawano Farms in the Buckhorn area of town) and offering free samples of their new product to dip it in.
"We have been bugging them to sell their barbecue sauce through our store. We just love it," said Home Sweet Home co-owner Diandra Oliver. "Copper Pig has all these drink specials that are named after other downtown businesses, they are really good about paying homage to their community, so we wanted to help do that too and support them, especially because they've had a hard time through no fault of their own."
"We actually use three different barbecue sauces at our restaurant, but this one is for our specialty, our brisket. I know there's a pig on our logo, but brisket is our key feature," said Burbee.
"This is easily our most popular barbecue sauce, we go through five times more of this stuff than the rest," said Vandooyeweert.
"This sauce is a Kansas City-style sauce," Burbee explained. "There is North Carolina-style, there's vinegar-based sauce, but we stayed true the the Kansas City style. It's ketchup-based, it has molasses, brown sugar, spices, and the one thing totally unique that no one can duplicate is the way we smoke the ketchup."
The jars of Copper Pig BBQ Sauce are on sale now at the Home Sweet Home deli counter.
