I am so thrilled to have a guest post today from my friend Sean.  Sean and I met when he started working at the same high school as I do. Sean is a police officer for the City of Dover, NH and is currently assigned to the high school as the school resource officer. Sean and I became fast friends with our love for good food. Sean is not only a great cook, (he makes a killer pulled pork, among many other things!) but also an avid hiker, tough mudder competitor and a fun loving Dad! I hope you enjoy Sean’s post and have the chance to try some of the great products we taste tested! Thanks for the tasty wings and the guest post Sean!  I am looking forward to many more of your creations!

Let me start this off by saying I am no BBQ master or anything of the like. I am simply a guy who loves to grill and smoke food. Again, I am no expert in the field, but I know what I like, and that’s a good jerk seasoning and I’ve been on a mission for years to find that perfect one that suits me. I also have a soft spot for exotic and non-traditional BBQ sauces, and have found that usually the locally made ones have been the best by any mass produced ones I have tried over the years.

So a week ago or so I was asked by my friend Anne to try out this local jerk seasoning she came across. I have been privileged to be on the receiving end of some of her cooking. Trusting her judgment, I would often bring her some of the fruits of my labor from the weekend and usually the following day I would get some of her cooking in return and I have never been disappointed. She and I have been trading our weekend creations for several months now and some of the folks around us at work often roll their eyes when we get deep in conversations about food!

Onto this jerk seasoning… Anne had procured some Marcia’s Jamaican Jerk Sauce and had asked me to smoke some chicken and try out the sauce.  Marcia’s Jerk Sauce is locally made next door to me in Portsmouth, NH. Well how can I say no to this? It’s a win win for me and I was excited for this jerk. So I set some time aside for the following Sunday.  I went to a local high end market in Portsmouth NH near where I live called McKinnon’s. Anyone who has ever been there can attest that this place has anything a person can want for cuts of meat. McKinnon’s has a lot more than just meats, but that’s what I was there to get. I selected some meaty looking wings and two other sauces I’ll mention later.

So on Sunday afternoon I set up my smoker which is a Weber 18.5″ Smokey Mountain. I can’t say enough about this smoker, but that’s not what this review is for. I decided to go with a combination of apple wood and pecan wood for the chicken wings. I purposely didn’t use any salt or rubs on the wings as I wanted the true flavor of the wood and the sauces I was about to use. So while the smoker was setting up, I laid out the three sauces I was going to use. While I was at McKinnon’s, I decided to grab a few more sauces to have a variety of wings because I probably bought about six pounds of them!

The other two sauces I went with was another jerk sauce and a BBQ sauce. The jerk sauce is Helen’s Tropical-Exotics Island Jerk, which I think is out of Florida. I have used this before in the “hot’ version on some smoked pulled pork and really liked it. McKinnon’s was out of the hot one so I went with the regular one. The BBQ sauce was a gamble, but the fact it was local (Maine) and it was called Beast Feast Maine Apple Bourbon BBQ Sauce, I had to try it.

So the wings were smoked for a little over an hour at around 220 degrees and they were divided up and given a bath in each respective sauce and left to sit for about ten minutes. I’m not submerging them for ten minutes.

What can I say about Marcia’s Jerk Sauce? This has been some of the best jerk I have had in years, if not ever. I found it to have a great kick and loaded with flavor. I found the consistency a little thicker than others I have tried, but I liked this better as more of the sauce sticks to the wings better! Also, I added about two ounces of water to the sauce just to loosen it up a little. Even looking at the ingredients, there are no preservatives, no added sugar, or high fructose corn syrup. This is a major plus to me. Anyone who likes jerk should really give this stuff the time of day.

Helen’s Tropical-Exotic Jerk Sauce is also very good. A little watery, but still full of flavor. The ingredients say things like “tropical spices” like it’s some huge secret. Personally, I don’t like when things are labeled like this and it has some added things like caramel color. All in all, a solid sauce and I would still use it again, but my new “go to” will be Marcia’s.

Okay, the Beast Feast Maine Apple Bourbon BBQ Sauce.  All I can say is wow! If you are not a bourbon fan, you probably won’t like this stuff, but luckily for me…I do. The ingredients list is a plus as well. No added junk and they even use a local (to where it’s made in Maine) coffee-apple bourbon. I will certainly be using this again and was very impressed with the distinct apple bourbon flavor.

One other thing I started doing when I use the smoker is, I’ll smoke three to four bulbs of garlic for about an hour and a half. I prep the bulb by simply exposing the the tops of the cloves and putting them on the top rack of the smoker. I then store the garlic and add to just about anything like pizza, eggs, quinoa, or whatever you add garlic to. You can easily pick up the smokiness in what you add it to.  Just a little spin off of the typical roasted garlic.

I’ll wrap this up by thanking Anne for allowing me the opportunity to write on her blog. This was a great experience and like I said…it’s a win win for me!  Thanks again Anne!

Sean

Thanks again Sean! I look forward to tasting many more dishes!!  If you want to buy some of Marcia’s Jerk Sauce you can find her at the Portsmouth NH farmers market or on line at www.jamaicanjerkshack.com

NOTE- if you like crispy wings you can put them in a deep fryer for a couple minutes and you will have the most moist, smoked and crispy wings!!

Enjoy!