Bar-B-Palooza 2007 Results

Much like presidenting, maintaining a blog is hard. At least, doing so well is hard. It requires commitment, enthusiasm and sustained interest. As a man who is routinely too distracted to complete more than the first three chapters of any book, I mostly lack those qualities. Therefore, long after the one person who clamored for me to post the data collected at Bar-B-Palooza 2007 has lost interest, here it is:

     {Download Results}

It's a chart that averages all of the ratings given by those who participated in Bar-B-Palooza 2007. The highest scores in each category are marked in green and lowest in red. This was a blind tasting, and in case you're interested, here is the questionnaire we used.

Several things surprised me. Neely's scored lower than even Schnucks Multi-Purpose Meat Sauce, but no one had a bad thing to say about the restaurant. Tops scored low as well, but I was less surprised as the sauce is ridiculously sour and requires both pork and slaw for the full effect. Three Little Pigs and The Sauce tied for sweetness despite the former being almost as tangy as Tops. My entire approach has been to limit sweetness. It looks like I've failed there. The biggest surprise was perhaps that the Commissary scored the highest in overall tastiness. This could be because we tasted the sauces sans pork, bun and slaw which can be a bit jarring.

What did I learn? Not much really. There was nothing scientific or statistically accurate about the event. It was just fun. I did learn that I have way too many friends who like the Bar-B-Q Shop, and several of them don't know the difference between sweet and sour.

Thanks to everyone who participated.