Williamson Bros. Bar-B-Q: A Georgia BBQ Original Since 1990

There are barbecue brands created in test kitchens. And then there are barbecue brands born beside the pit.

Williamson Bros. Bar-B-Q is very much the latter.

The Williamson brothers' story goes back to 1990, when they drove over from Alabama looking for a place to open a barbecue restaurant. They took an exit in Marietta, Georgia, found an empty restaurant and signed the lease before they had much of a plan.

Then they went back to Alabama to round up their one employee, returned to Georgia and got to work: building a barbecue pit by hand, renovating the restaurant and pouring virtually everything they had into the business.

By the time Williamson Bros. Bar-B-Q opened on March 24, 1990, they say they had just $167 left to their names.

That's about as authentic a BBQ origin story as you'll find.

More than three decades later, Williamson Bros. has grown into a restaurant, catering and sauce business, and it still cooks its ribs, Boston butts and smoked chickens on a traditional wood-burning pit.

That's exactly the kind of company we love discovering, and sharing, at Grill Masters Club.

From a Marietta BBQ Pit to a Bottling Plant

Williamson Bros. didn't start out trying to build a packaged-food brand. They started by making barbecue.

That's an important distinction. The sauces came out of a restaurant culture built around smoked meats, wood-burning pits and feeding hungry customers. Every bottle was a restaurant sauce first.

As the restaurants and catering operation grew, so did demand for the sauces. Williamson Bros. eventually opened a dedicated bottling operation, and today runs a 25,000-square-foot sauce manufacturing facility in Marietta, a place some people have nicknamed the "Willy Wonka factory of BBQ sauce."

That's quite a journey from $167 in the bank.

The Bottle in Your Box: Williamson Bros. Hot Honey Bar-B-Q Sauce

The Williamson Bros. pick for Flavor Formation is their Hot Honey Bar-B-Q Sauce, the hot honey take on the tomato-based Southern sauce they've served in their own dining rooms since 1990.

Honey and brown sugar lead. Molasses and smoke give it depth. Red pepper builds slowly on the back end instead of hitting you all at once, so it works on the family table and still gives the heat seekers something to chase. It's thick enough to hang on a rack of ribs and loose enough to squeeze into a bowl for fries and tenders.

It's also the workhorse of the box. Hot Honey shows up in four of the six printed recipes, including the Gameday Honey BBQ Wings, Blackened Shrimp Skewers with Hot Honey BBQ Drizzle and Blackened Steak Bites, plus four more in the online bonus recipes.

Why Williamson Bros. Belongs in a Grill Masters Club Box

We're constantly hunting for BBQ products that give our members something worth talking about.

Sometimes that's an unexpected flavor combination. Sometimes it's an innovative new product. And sometimes it's something that connects you directly to a great American barbecue tradition.

Williamson Bros. gives us that connection.

This is a company that has spent decades cooking ribs, pork and chicken over wood-burning pits and building sauces around the foods people actually eat at a BBQ restaurant. For us, that history and experience matter.

When we're putting together a collection like Flavor Formation, we're not interested in filling space inside a box. Every product needs a reason to be there. We want products that make you want to fire up the grill.

The Kind of BBQ Brand We Love to Find

One of the best parts about Grill Masters Club is introducing people to brands they might never discover walking through their local grocery store.

Williamson Bros. represents an especially fun kind of discovery. There's a real restaurant behind the bottle. There are real pits. There's a family business. There's a history stretching back more than 35 years.

And there's a sauce operation that grew because people wanted to take those flavors home with them. That's a story worth putting in a Grill Masters Club box, and it's the same reason we partnered with Sticky Fingers, another Southern smokehouse whose sauces started on its own restaurant tables.

Real BBQ. New Inspiration.

That's ultimately why Williamson Bros. made sense for Flavor Formation. Their story represents something we believe strongly at Grill Masters Club:

Great barbecue doesn't stand still.

You can respect tradition and still experiment. You can master the fundamentals and still discover new flavors.

You can cook ribs the way you've cooked them for years, and then find a sauce, rub or technique that makes you see them differently.

Williamson Bros. brings more than three decades of Georgia barbecue tradition to the collection. We bring the inspiration for what to do with it next. The Starting Lineup playbook shows how Hot Honey layers with the rest of the box, from blackened crust to finishing dust.

That's Flavor Formation.

Discover. Refine. Master.

Williamson Bros. FAQ

Where is Williamson Bros. Bar-B-Q from?

Marietta, Georgia. The brothers came over from Alabama and opened their first restaurant there on March 24, 1990. They've since added a location in Canton, Georgia, a catering operation and a 25,000-square-foot sauce facility in Marietta.

Is Williamson Bros. Hot Honey Bar-B-Q Sauce spicy?

It's a mild sweet heat. The honey and sugar hit first and the red pepper follows a second later. It's also gluten free and made without high fructose corn syrup.

How do you use hot honey BBQ sauce?

Treat it as a finishing glaze. Brush thin coats on ribs, chicken, pork or shrimp in the last 15 to 20 minutes, toss wings in it straight off the grate, or whisk a few tablespoons into sour cream and lime for a quick hot honey BBQ crema.

What else is in the Flavor Formation BBQ Box?

Williamson Bros. Hot Honey Bar-B-Q Sauce, Braswell's Al Pastor BBQ Sauce, Blackened Seasoning by The Spice Lab, Kosmos Q Honey BBQ Wing Dust and a 100-pack of 12" bamboo skewers, plus a printed booklet with six gameday recipes. The full box overview covers every product and recipe.