Boar and Castle Sauce

Black and White: The Boar and Castle Restaurant on the corner of Walker and Market streets. 

Imagine an epic restaurant, something out of the movies, something that no longer exists except in the hearts and taste-buds of times gone by. Yet something lingers on, that something is Boar and Castle brown sauce. A sauce I was unaware of (or the controversy) till I was rummaging around the Downtown Farmers Market today. I almost put it in my basket by myself when the owner then turned to me and said he just had someone fly in and order seven cases of Castle Sauce to ship to New York. I had to try it.

So after hitting the Triad Meat Company on Randleman road and picking up some hamburger patties, we came home and made dinner. I figured I'd give it a try. It's a rather weird taste, but I like it. It's as if someone took ketchup, mustard, and BBQ sauce and mixed it up all together. It soaks into the bun, and turns the burger into the most unique flavored sandwich I've yet to find locally.

It's somewhere between A1 and Heinz 57. Sort of like the Brit's HP sauce, but with a bit of zest.

It's actually quite sad that a restaurant with it's own special sauce found its demise in the capitalist restaurant chains and their "standard" condiments. Though one can argue that Big-Mac Sauce alone was enough to conquer this southern concoction which may have been too tangy for a national palette at the the time. Now that it's 2013, and our country has been infused with Tex-Mex, and wasabi, perhaps we can say that Castle sauce was just a bit before it's time? Of course even the Castle sauce itself has changed because of modern bottling techniques, requiring pasteurization.

However there is some controversy. There's Castle Sauce (what I purchased) and Boar and Castle Sauce (which I'm not sure if it exists anymore). Apparently in 2007, the originators decided to stop making the sauce temporarily and supply dried up. Then someone decided to clone the recipe, and now it's marketed with a similar label to the original.

It's now over 83 years old, and Leon Thomas's sauce legacy lives on. It's an interestingly good sauce which seems to fit into Greensboro's tastes perfectly. Grab a bottle and try it yourself.