I need the skinny on Maurice's BBQ Sauce

Well, given my handle I suppose I have an obligation to speak up on this one...

First, in response to the OP, the Carolina Gold is usually used as a finishing sauce only. It's a table condiment with pulled pork and chicken. Beef brisket isn't as common here in the Lowcountry area, but the Gold goes very well with pulled pork if you like a sweet sauce. And I agree, the use of sugar instead of HFCS definitely bumps it up a notch or three. Also, the usual North Carolina mustard/vinegar recipes taste quite different from Bessinger's Carolina Gold, a uniquely South Carolina sauce, but that's another thread for another day.

The controversy over Maurice, however, can't be ignored. As Faulkner wrote, in the South the past isn't over, it isn't even past. You need a scorecard to follow this, but I will give it a try. Keep in mind that Southerners typically don't welcome outsiders into family squabbles , so the facts in the open are a bit limited.

Daddy Bessinger (Joe) came up with the family sauce recipe back in the early 20th century. The several sons, including Maurice, each serve it in their various restaurants around the state. Maurice has half a dozen or so restaurants around the state capital, Columbia, including his flagship, the Piggie Park. I stopped by once, was not particularly impressed with the food or the service. Maurice was also successful for a time selling his bottled sauce at Southern grocery chains (Piggly Wiggly) and WalMart. Here, however, is where the controversy begins...

Maurice has been an ardent supporter of Confederate flags and what is referred to in some quarters as "states' rights" politics. Maurice displays these flags extensively at the Piggy Park, with an enormous one hoisted above the restaurant where the US flag originally appeared. Around the year 2000, the state legislature went through a considerable brouhaha about the display of the Confederate Stars-and-Bars flag atop the state capitol building. The legislature eventually decided to move it to a separate flagpole/memorial elsewhere on the Capitol grounds (ironically, the new position makes it even more prominent). The state, incidentally, is still, eight years later, under an NAACP boycott because that group views the negotiated compromise as an inadequate resolution. Getting back to the Piggy Park, along with the flags there was also some distribution and sale of CSA (Confederate States of America) memorabilia and pamphlets within the restaurant (I have not seen these pamphlets personally, but it is generally accepted in the lore that they did exist). Some of these publications allegedly suggested that perhaps slavery wasn't so bad, as it managed to save folks from heathen lives in Africa. As you might imagine, it was only a matter of time until the porkbutt hit the fan, so to speak, and predictable economic pressures were brought to bear such that WalMart dropped Maurice's bottled sauce and his wholesale biz fell apart.

Unfortunately for the Bessingers, Maurice's various public pronouncements and behavior during this controversy brought a certain notoriety to the family name, and hurt the businesses of his family members elsewhere in the state who had their own restaurants and had nothing to do with Maurice's politics.

My impression is that the several other brothers (one of whose restaurants I enjoy regularly in Charleston, that restaurant having been cited by Emeril Lagasse as making the best cheeseburger in America) are nothing like Maurice and avoid discussing the topic whenever possible, as they wish merely to make good Q and serve their daddy's sauce.

So...my personal choice is that I gladly enjoy the Bessinger's sauce at the restaurants of the other Bessinger brothers...but not at Maurice's Piggy Park. As for yourself, buy the sauce, you bought the controversy.

I like the sauce no matter what the politics...and so did the Yankees...