North Carolina Eastern-Style Barbecue Sauce

This is widely used for North Carolina-style pig pickin's, where the cavity of the pig is sloshed with sauce so the sauce seeps into the meat during hours of smoking. The mixture is later chopped in the cooked pork. Some purists might fuss at us for adding the ginger ale, but we were partial to this recipe passed on from a prize-winning North Carolina barbecue smoker.

Yield: Makes 2 quarts

Ingredients

• 7  cups vinegar
• 1  cup  ginger ale
• 3  tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
• 1 to 2  tablespoons ground pepper

Preparation

Stir together all ingredients until well blended.

Serve sauce over pork barbecue.