St Louis - Home of the Oldest BBQ Sauce? Casualty or Survivor?

[JGo37]

Inspired by Mr. Bones down Kansas-way 'barbeque' news item from 1867, I'm letting y'all know about a mini sauce crisis in St Lou. Maull's bills themselves as the oldest BBQ sauce in the US, and the KC-style label says that recipe hasn't been fussed with since 1926. Maull's stopped deliveries a month or two back, then closed their doors, then shut off the phones. The grocery store shelves emptied (I panicked and picked up ~ 2-3 of each flavor myself, even though they weren't really in my rotation).

It will be sad if Maull's is gone, but rumors of a sale aren't yet confirmed by 'show me' - after all, this is Missoura. I can say that my taste buds think many of their sauces are worth buying, instead of making your own, if nothing else but for nostalgic reasons and to feel linked to the deep history of BBQ.

Anyone know of an older sauce? Anyone going to miss Maull's? Maybe a petition should force the company to make the original recipe public if they do close for good...

[Troutman]

Sorry never tried it but I'm not a big sauce guy. There is a cooking sauce I've used for years called Woody's. It has a pretty big national following. Originally it was made in New Orleans but the factory it was made it got wiped out by Hurricane Katrina so it disappeared. Looking on line I found that people were clamoring for it so much so that the price shot up four or five times what it originally cost !!! As a result someone out in Cali bought the recipe and is now producing it again. Perhaps Maull's will have a cult-like resurrection of its own !!

[Spinaker]

Interesting. I guess I never thought about what was the original commercial sauce.

[tpobst]

My dad used to use Maulls when I was a kid, have alot of fond memories of sundays on the back patio eating bbq pork steaks with maulls. If it is true they are going out of business I will kind of miss it.

[JGo37]

STL certainly likes BBQ pork steaks - I didn't really know of that comfort food legend till I moved here, to MO. I can't find confirmation that Maull's was sold, and saved, but the news feeds say that Steve Maull's sale criteria included that manufacturing stayed in STL. By the way, to boost your memories, here's a quote from local FOX news:


"Maulling it" has become part of St. Louis’s vocabulary…the old ad jingles sticking like sauce on a pork steak."

[EdF]

Pork steak forever! (and I'm a Yankee).

[JGo37]

I just added the Yankees as my least favorite team, to my MLB profile.

But I'm kinda a yankee too - raised on the tailgate of a pickup in the middle of a cornfield on the shores of Erie, on the OH - PA line.