Ingredients · Flavouring

Hickory Smoke

Carya spp. · Juglandaceae (walnut family)

Hickory Smoke
Smoke flavouring, in powder form. Two products carry it. It is worth being plain about what this is: liquid smoke — real wood smoke, condensed and captured in water — dried onto a carrier. It is not a chemical imitation of smoke; it is smoke. But it is also not the same as something that has actually been smoked, and a blend that lists smoke flavour is telling you which of the two it is.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partSmoke
KindFlavouring
CaffeineCaffeine-free
TasteBacon-like woodsmoke, direct and strong; it reads immediately as barbecue

How to use it

It is in the blend. A very small amount goes a long way, and it is the ingredient most likely to make a rub taste artificial if overdone — which is a reason to reach for a smoked salt or smoked paprika instead when subtlety matters.

With food

Beef and pork. Beans. Cheese. Corn. Tomato. Barbecue sauce.

With spices

Smoked paprika. Chipotle. Brown sugar. Garlic and onion. Black pepper. Cumin.

With tea

Not a tea ingredient.

Its story

Where it comes from

Hickory is a North American tree — twelve native Carya species, eleven of them in the United States — and the barbecue wood of the American South. Our lot names no wood source for the smoke itself.

What happened

Liquid smoke has a date: E. H. Wright began the commercial sale of pyroligneous acid in the United States in 1895 under a new name, liquid smoke. Pyroligneous acid is the condensate of burning wood, which had been known for a very long time as a wood-preserving by-product; the commercial insight was that it tasted of the thing it came from. Pecan, the traditional wood for smoking chipotles, is a hickory — so the smoke in a chipotle and the smoke in a Southern barbecue are cousins.

On the shelf with it

Every product it goes into.

Every ingredient in the shop

Explore

Other ways in

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