The other night I had pulled pork sandwiches with a unique off-brand "Kansas City Style" barbecue sauce.
First off, before I go on, let me say that any sauce you see outside of Kansas City itself with the phrase "Kansas City Style" on it (or merely invoking Kansas City) is probably not going to be anything like actual Kansas City barbecue sauce. Here, there are two types: the Jack Stack-style smoky, somewhat sweet and a bit spicy sauces, and the *real* gems of Kansas City, the two major Henry Perry style sauces (Gates' and Sons and Arthur Bryants).
The Henry Perry-style sauces both have the same general ingredients, with some differences (Arthur Bryant's contains lard and a small amount of molasses, while Gates' does not--otherwise, they are both more or less identical to the original Barbecue King of KC's sauce.) They are absolutely nothing like Jack Style style smokey sauces or the KC Masterpiece clones. They are not sweet. They are not thick. They are not smoky. They are peppery, savory, kick you-in-the-mouth-with-their-taste-and-you-will-want-more-because-it's-just-that-good sauces; they have sweet and spicy variants, but really, the traditional sauces are pleasantly harsh, not spicy.
The Kansas City Style sauce we put on the pulled pork combined the smoky sweetness of the Jack Stack style with the peppery, kick-you-in-the-gut goodness of the traditional KC sauces. It was the best of both worlds--the only thing that would have been better is if the meal had actually been slow-cooked in a smoker with hickory.
Oh, and the pork was insanely tender too.
