New England Patriots legend Vince Wilfork makes a mean BBQ sauce.
This isn’t an “Oh, a famous person put their face on a product and it’s not bad” situation. Wilfork’s new GHI75 sauces are excellent. I want to buy an oil drum full of them. (You can get a more reasonable order of them off the GHI75 website.)
The sauces are in the process of rolling out to select stores and will be available to order online in three varieties:
Original
Sweet & Spicy
Hickory & Brown Sugar
As for the name, GHI stands for “Gotta have it.” Meanwhile, the 75 was his jersey number as a player.
Vince Wilfork BBQ Sauce
Patriots legend Vince Wilfork's new line of BBQ Sauces. Big Vince's GHI (Gotta Have It) Sauce comes in "Original," "Sweet & Spicy" and "Hickory & Brown Sugar."(Nick O'Malley/MassLive)
Big Vince’s GHI75 BBQ Sauces
There are two areas where I trust Wilfork above most people on the planet.
The first is providing stout run defense in a 3-4 defense, handling the double A-gap assignment as a 0-technique. The second is BBQ.
At age 44 and already inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame, Wilfork’s days of blasting opposing centers into newly formed craters in the ground are behind him. Fortunately for all of us, that means there’s more time to focus on his passion for BBQ.
Talking to MassLive’s Karen Guregian, Wilfork says he had an epiphany while staying in Boston: He wanted to make his own BBQ sauce and sell it at farmers’ markets.
That realization launched Wilfork into his new obsession. For the past two years, Wilfork says he’s been obsessed with making sauce. Inspired by the sauce his father used to make, Wilfork says he’s made over 100 sauces — and would regularly stay up all night trying to get the recipe right.
“I’d make batch after batch after batch trying to find the one,” Wilfork said. “My wife can tell you, there would be nights I wouldn’t sleep. It’d be up til like 2 and 3 in the morning, just working.”
Well, I’m here to tell you that you can taste that passion in the final products.
Vince Wilfork BBQ Sauce
The "Original" variety Patriots legend Vince Wilfork's new line of BBQ Sauces — Big Vince's GHI (Gotta Have It) Sauce.(Nick O'Malley/MassLive)
What do they taste like?
Original — This is your versatile, do-it-all sauce that hits your tongue with a balanced rush of flavor. You get a good wave of sweetness as well as a peppery haze of spice and a pleasant vinegary tang that makes you want to go back for more.
The other two sauces aren’t radically different from this one. Instead, all signs point to them being spin-offs of the flavor foundation that this sauce provides.
That’s a good thing. This sauce is everything those “Kansas City-style” sauces at the grocery store wish they could be.
Vince Wilfork BBQ Sauce
The "Sweet & Spicy" variety Patriots legend Vince Wilfork's new line of BBQ Sauces — Big Vince's GHI (Gotta Have It) Sauce.(Nick O'Malley/MassLive)
Sweet & Spicy — First off: Yup, this is actually spicy. But not so much that it dominates the sauce.
It’s a really enjoyable level of colorful, peppery heat. The kick is real, but in a way that complements the other flavors. I liked the way that it maintained a low ember of spiciness. It added a fun dimension to the sauce that made me want to take another bite.
Vince Wilfork BBQ Sauce
The "Hickory & Brown Sugar" variety Patriots legend Vince Wilfork's new line of BBQ Sauces — Big Vince's GHI (Gotta Have It) Sauce.(Nick O'Malley/MassLive)
Hickory & Brown Sugar — A lot of store-bought sauces promise smoky hickory flavors. I rarely give it a second thought.
But this? It’s a legit thundercloud of deep, smoky flavor. This sauce tastes like a delicious campfire. It just reminded me that I should check my smoke detector batteries.
That’s it. No one else is allowed to advertise hickory BBQ sauce. The only places I want to see “hickory” mentioned are on Wilfork’s BBQ sauce bottles and in the movie “Hoosiers.”
So are they any good?
Yes. This sauce rules. It’s a clear upgrade over most stuff you’ll find at the grocery store.
When buying bottled sauce, you typically get something that’s a homogenous, super-sweet, simple sauce.
The GHI75 sauces are addictively flavorful and complex. It reminds me of that time I was near San Antonio for a wedding and went to a random BBQ shack that handed me a free Lone Star beer while I waited for my order of some of the best food I’ve ever had.
Thank you, Vince Wilfork, for bringing me back to that place.
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