Cider vinegar
Cider vinegar is made when acetic-acid bacteria use oxygen to turn the alcohol in dry apple cider into acetic acid. This historical cask method begins with fermented cider and differs from apple-scrap vinegar made with sugar and water.
Vinegar and pepper barbecue sauce
A thin eastern North Carolina sauce of distilled vinegar, pepper flakes, black pepper and salt, mixed cold and used to season chopped or pulled pork.
A sauce of vinegar and pepper
Eastern North Carolina sauce is a thin barbecue sauce built on vinegar rather than tomato. Where a tomato sauce is thick and sweet, this one is sharp, salty and hot, and it is poured over chopped or pulled pork to season it rather than to coat it.
The recipe in the account is mostly distilled white vinegar, five cups to a batch, with a cup of water to thin it. Salt, sugar, black pepper, hot red pepper flakes and a hot sauce such as TABASCO or Texas Pete give the rest of the flavour. The account calls the result a mouth-puckering condiment.
Sources for this section
Mixing, not cooking
The method is a cold mix. The salt and sugar are dissolved by whisking, or by shaking the ingredients together in a jar, and the sauce is then tasted and corrected. Because it is not cooked, the sharpness of the vinegar and the heat of the pepper come through directly, and the cook adjusts the salt and pepper flakes to taste.
The account says the sauce is refrigerated for up to several weeks and brought to room temperature before it is served. It gives no room-temperature limit, and the page does not supply one.
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Gaps
The account gives no history, date or account of who first made this sauce, and this page does not supply one. A fuller study would need the regional barbecue sources and the people who make the sauce in eastern North Carolina, which were not consulted here.
Sources for this section
History
The account gives a recipe and calls the sauce a mouth-puckering condiment, the most extreme of American barbecue sauces. It does not give a history or a date for the recipe.
Ingredients
Yield 6 cup · Scaling: source batch only
Distilled white vinegar
1.18 L5 cup as recorded
Water
237 mL1 cup as recorded
SaltAdd more to taste.
44 mL3 tbsp as recorded
44 mL3 tbsp as recorded
Black pepperFreshly ground.
44 mL3 tbsp as recorded
Hot red pepper flakesAdd more to taste.
30 mL2 tbsp as recorded
Hot sauceSuch as TABASCO or Texas Pete.
44 mL3 tbsp as recorded
Method
Risks and precautions · Standard risk
Refrigerate between uses
Control sourceThe account gives refrigerated storage for up to several weeks and no more precise limit.
- Combine everything in a large nonreactive bowl with one cup of water, and whisk until the salt and sugar dissolve. Alternatively, put the ingredients in a large jar and shake.
- Taste, and add more salt or pepper flakes as needed.
- Refrigerate for up to several weeks, and bring to room temperature before serving.
Conditions
Yield6 cup
Active time5 min
Places
Eastern North Carolina
Documented use · Region evidenceThe recipe is named for eastern North Carolina in the source. The account gives no history of its origin.
Related
More from North Carolina
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Sources
Barbecue BibleMethod · Inspiration
Eastern North Carolina-Style SauceIngredients and quantities for six cups: 5 cups distilled white vinegar, 1 cup water, 3 tbsp each salt, sugar and black pepper, 2 tbsp hot red pepper flakes, 3 tbsp hot sauce
Whisk or shake; taste and adjust; refrigerate up to several weeks; bring to room temperature
Described as a mouth-puckering condiment
Cited in: A sauce of vinegar and pepper; Mixing, not cooking; Gaps