Highwayman Rib Rub

What’s unique about Highwayman Rib Rub is that the amount you apply and your cooking temperature will noticeably change the flavor and texture of the finished ribs. For a more traditional finish, apply a light to moderate coating. The molasses melts into the meat, creating a mahogany-colored, smoke-set surface with balanced sweet heat, smoke, vinegar, and savory depth.

For a bolder experience, apply heavily; likely more than you’ve put on ribs in the past. As it cooks, the molten molasses concentrates on the surface, creating a darker, stickier finish that lands somewhere between a bark and glaze. The flavor becomes richer and more intense, with deeper molasses sweetness, smoke, and umami.

Season ribs generously and smoke at 250°–275°F for a cleaner smoke-set finish. Increase temperatures to 275°–300°F for darker color, more caramelization, and a stickier texture. Perfect for baby backs, spare ribs, St. Louis-style ribs, and rib tips.

While designed as a dry rub for pork ribs, Highwayman also works beautifully on pork belly, pork chops, country-style ribs, chicken, and turkey.

Read our Co-Founder, Mike Johnston's, Meet Highwayman Rib Rub Journal article.

Before my Chasing BBQ road trip, before offset smokers, before building rubs and sauces in the Savory Spice test kitchen, I was a rib tip guy. Growing up on the North Side of Chicago, rib tips could be found here and there. Sticky, smoky, meaty little burnt-edge flavor bombs.

As a young man, my good friend Tony and I knew that if we wanted the best ribs and tips, we had to hit the road and take the Dan Ryan down to Lem’s Bar-B-Q on the South Side. There, slipping cash underneath two-inch bulletproof glass to get a pile of rib tips topped with two slices of Wonder Bread passed back out to me, was probably the first realization that great barbecue was always going to be worth the drive.

Even after traveling all over the country eating barbecue, that flavor profile never really left me. I think that’s part of why Highwayman ended up heading in the flavor direction it did. The bubbling molasses, the blackened edges, the sticky smoke-set finish… it taps into something I’ve probably been chasing since those early rib tip runs in Chicago. This rub isn’t trying to be refined or perfect. It’s trying to be memorable.

Shop all our Founders' Favorite spices and blends.

Highwayman Rib Rub was inspired by years of chasing barbecue across America and one ingredient that connected every region: molasses. What started as an experiment to make molasses the star instead of a background ingredient became a completely different kind of BBQ ribs seasoning rub.

Designed for at-home pitmasters who enjoy experimentation, this smoked rib rub creates different results depending on application and cooking temperature. The result is a sweet-heat flavor profile that captures the spirit of classic roadside barbecue, smoky rib tips, and long summer cooks.