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Jack Daniel's Seasoned and Cooked Pulled Pork
I Paid: $6.59 for a 16-ounce package (prices may vary by region)
The gorgeous and wordy wrapper that surrounds Jack Daniel's Old Time Quality Seasoned and Cooked Pulled Pork with Jack Daniel's Barbeque Sauce Made with Authentic Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey writes a check that the pork inside the box can't actually cash. It's a classic case of licensing gone bad, of brand overreach, and of overpromising while underdelivering. And that's a shame, because there's no reason this stuff had to be bad.
The premise is simple: a refrigerated, vacuum-sealed one-pound mass of pulled pork, ready to be heated up and stuffed into sandwiches. Even at nearly $7 a package, a pound of good pulled pork would be a good deal—you could make a number of tasty meals with it with very little effort.
Unfortunately, the Jack Daniel's approach to barbecue is as follows: Drown it with sugar. A serving of this stuff has nearly as much sugar as a Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar—22 grams. Granted that we're comparing 5.33 ounces of pork with 1.5 ounces of chocolate, but we're also comparing MEAT with CANDY. In the ingredient list for the pork (which includes ingredients that have their own ingredient lists) you can find brown sugar, sugar, molasses, and corn syrup. Pretty macho.
The sugar that covers this stuff would leave little room for other flavors, were any even present to begin with. This pulled pork cries out for smoke, for heat, for depth of spice, for vinegar, for something. But aside from a bit of garlic and onion, all that really comes through is sugar, brown sugar, soy sauce, and corn syrup. A distinct whiskey flavor would have also been a nice diversion from the candy factory; thus, while the packaging of Jack Daniel's Pulled Pork says "vintage Harley-Davidson," the flavor says "PT Cruiser."
Dude. Do you even know what the word "epic" means?
I make my own pulled pork (and add beer, Bourbon or rye whiskey to the basic recipe). I use EITHER molasses or brown sugar, never both and can't imagine why the corn syrup would be useful. I always 'big batch' cook this recipe and it gets rave reviews as a frozen, packaged treat for family and friends. Is there a better frozen commercial alternative out there? (just in case I decide to get...+READ
I make my own pulled pork (and add beer, Bourbon or rye whiskey to the basic recipe). I use EITHER molasses or brown sugar, never both and can't imagine why the corn syrup would be useful. I always 'big batch' cook this recipe and it gets rave reviews as a frozen, packaged treat for family and friends. Is there a better frozen commercial alternative out there? (just in case I decide to get lazy...)-COLLAPSE
Did the reviewer even taste it, or just read the ingredients? Clearly if you don't like sweet BBQ, you won't like this. If you do, you probably will. Not to offend, but the review is near worthless based on that.
Epic. This is one epic story. :) Why am I not surprised that most commercial BBQ pork underdeliver?
Their BBQ sauces, on the other hand, simply rock. They don't have booze in them but there's something that gives the sauce a nice whiskey kick.
The Baby Rays one is worse cause the sauce isn't even that great. However, If you can find it, the Dinosaur Barbecue version of the same idea is a lot better. It has good meat with enough sauce covering it to not dry it out.
"while the packaging of Jack Daniel's Pulled Pork says "vintage Harley-Davidson," the flavor says "PT Cruiser."
nice line.
That's most package food for you: when all else fails, drown it in sugar/salt. Cheaper than adding in real flavor, but I could have easily been tricked into getting this. Thanks for the report!