Famous Dave's Rib Rub Recommendation

I'm not one to be a shill for name brand products, but if something is truly exceptional I won't hesitate to support it here on the blog. I HIGHLY recommend Famous Dave's Rib Rub.

I have a cabinet literally bursting with dry spices, rubs, blends and mixes; some name brand stuff, some of my own concoctions, and some I get from the Spice Corner in Philadelphia (which is also an excellent place to visit if you're ever in the Italian Market section of the city.) I have tried tons of different dry rubs on pork and beef ribs. I like to experiment. I figure I'm investing a whole day of drinking and sports watching while slow cooking ribs so I want to have some fun tinkering. Whats the fun in having the end result always come out the same after all?

I came across Famous Dave's rib rub last month while down in Topsail Isle on the North Carolina coast. Eight college buddies whom I hadn't seen in 25 years and I had a rental house for the week, so it was a drunken mess, but a LOT of great food was cooked. On the morning of the second day a couple of the guys went out early to pick up supplies for the day, many cases of beer, and a bunch of racks of both pork back and beef ribs. When I asked how they were going to prepare them they were like "well we got this dry rub - Famous Daves - it was all they had at the little market in town." I was bummed out frankly. Famous Daves, for those of you who don't know, is a chain type of rib restaurant. There's a few of them around here in Philly, I've never been to one, but I'd tried their BBQ sauce once off the supermarkt shelf and was not impressed. I did not have high hopes for this rub. I expected it to be about 80 percent salt like most commercial rubs you find in the supermarket. Boy was I wrong! The fellas dispersed a generous amount of the stuff on both the beef and the pork ribs, let it set while the fire was heating up, and four hours later VOILA! Absolutely the best tasting ribs I've ever had - BAR NONE - and that covers a lot of years and a lot of great ribs.

Now all due credit needs to go to both the cook (my buddy Clive who is a good ol' boy NASCAR tailgating master BBQ chef) as well as the great quality of the meats, but the seasoning was remarkably well balanced; a little sweet, just the right amount of spicy, not at all overly salty, hitting all the right "bbq" notes with a hint of something I couldn't define at the time but later found out to be ground cloves. In totality it just worked amazingly well. No gooey BBQ sauce needed with this stuff, just dig right in.

I have since searched it out locally and have gone through two jars already. It's great on ribs, pork chops, and steaks too. In fact the last night in Topsail we treated ourselves to a massive grilled beef rib roast, again with the Famous Daves rub, and it was another "best I've ever had" moment. Like I said I'm not a paid shill nor am I employed by Famous Daves, but I give this stuff my five star recommendation. Give it a try and let me know what you think.