Smoked Coke BBQ Sauce

Intended as a sauce for the Sous Vide BBQ Brisket.

Ingredients

1 bottle of Coke (preferably the one that's made in Mexico with sugar cane)

1/2 an onion, roughly chopped

1 cup of drippings from your smoked brisket that you hopefully made

1/4 cup tomato paste

2 Tbsp. freshly toasted cumin seeds, ground

1 Tbsp. freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp. minced garlic

1 and 2/3 cup of ketchup

3 Tbsp. distilled white vinegar

1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

2 Tbsp. dark brown sugar

2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

1/4 cup of your favorite vinegar-based hot sauce (Tabasco, etc)

Kosher salt

Recipe

1. First, we need to make smoked coke. Pour the onions and the bottle of coke into a saucepan, and simmer on the stove on low heat to infuse the onion flavor into the coke, but don't burn too much of the sugars

2. Take the coke/onion mixture and pour it into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap.

3. Prepare your smoking gun with your favorite wood chips, and insert the tube of the gun underneath the plastic wrap. Feed smoke into the container and then cover with plastic wrap, let sit for 1-2 minutes.

4. Drain into another container using a mesh strainer, and now you've got a batch of smoked coke

5. Heat up a saucepan on medium heat. Add 1 Tbsp. of brisket fat to the pan and swirl to coat

6. Add the tomato paste and cook for a minute while stirring until the paste has darkened a bit

7. Add the cumin and pepper, cook for 30 seconds or so, then add the garlic and cook for another minute, stirring consistently

8. Add the remaining brisket drippings, ketchup, 1/4 cup of smoked coke, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, and mustard. Stir to combine everything

9. Simmer the sauce on low heat for 30 minutes, keeping the pan covered to avoid getting sugary splatters all over your stove

10. Allow the sauce to cool, then stir in your vinegar sauce and adjust with salt or more sugar to achieve your desired flavor balance