Tiny Wall Lake, Iowa has two claims to fame - first, it's the birthplace of singer Andy Williams; and second, it's home to the maker of some of the best barbecue sauce in the world - Cookies.
Cookies has a sweet, smoky flavor to it that enhances any type of barbecue you want to have with it. We even use on our meat loaf and as a base for my Cold Fusion Baked Beans. It's thick, but not so thick that you can't slather it on the meat to give it a little more "oomph" in taste.
Cookies started out in the Wall Lake kitchen of L.D. Cook in the mid-70's. His friend, Speed Herrig, liked the stuff so much that he took off on the road and tirelessly promoted the sauce to stores and restaurants all over the state of Iowa and beyond. Today, Cookies is produced in a facility that is a little over 100,000 square feet in size.
Cookies makes a number of varieties of barbecue sauce, but we're partial to the Cookies Western which has a little spicy zip to the taste. I like taking Cookies Western and adding a little more cayenne pepper than what they put in it, some Worcestershire sauce and some garlic powder to it. Ummm, boy!
Cookies also has taco and wings sauces, too. I'm not too keen on those as I am the barbecue sauce.
I've been to the Cookies plant in Wall Lake, but found that they aren't too "visitor friendly". They don't have a showroom, per se, or a gift shop where you can pick up sauce or shirts or anything like that. At least they didn't about five years ago when I purposely drove through Wall Lake going between Carroll, IA and Sioux City.
Cookies can be ordered on line or can be found at Hy-Vee stores throughout the Midwest.
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