taste like ranch dressing.
Courtesy of Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q
Whether tangy and sweet or thick and spicy, barbecue sauces are usually red. South Carolina’s leans orange from its signature mustard, while Kansas City’s sauce takes on a rust-like hue thanks to brown sugar or molasses. But Alabama’s regional sauce, with its white, creamy appearance, stands out from the crowd.
We have Big Bob Gibson, the pit master behind what became Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q in Decatur, Alabama, to thank for the convention-busting, and often overlooked, white sauce. It all began in 1925, when the 6-foot-four, 300-pound railway worker started smoking pork and chicken in hickory-fired brick pits on weekends. He served the meat on a makeshift table nailed to a sycamore tree in his backyard.