Retail Sausage Of The Year 2012

The Rate My Sausage champion Retail Sausage Of The Year for 2012 is Keevil & Keevil's Cumberland Sausage!  Congratulations guys!

In June 2012 we wrote...."Delectably juicy, lovely skins on the bangers, giving a perfect snappy crack when Junior Sidekick cut into it.  Much to my delight they fall apart enticingly when you push them apart with your knife, and the same crumbling effect occurs when you chew them, releasing the gorgeous flavour for you to savour...."

We loved K&K's Cumberlands...."Each sausage weighs more after frying than most of the other bangers that we’ve tried do before they even see the pan – make no mistake, these are big, rough and ready sausages designed to take on and defeat the hungriest of appetites."

Well done to Keevil & Keevil, you are Rate My Sausage Retail Champions for 2012!

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The runner-up for the retail category for 2012 is.....Keevil & Keevil's Pork, Honey & Mustard Sausage.  A double for K&K.

The first impression was “It’s all honey, where’s the hot stuff?”  Then, tasting the second sausage, ah, there it is!  This time it was mainly mustard with just a sniff of sweetness.  I like this a lot, the sausages seem to be hand-made with varying amounts of the component parts ending up in each link, instead of being industrially mashed together in some giant Kenwood mixer somewhere in Thailand.  The third sausage was a perfect mixture of the mustard and the honey, with the final mouthful largely mustardy, giving my tastebuds a final farewell scalding on the way down the hatch.

Just like it says on the packet, you can sniff sweet honey and tangy mustard at the same time, wafting out of the kitchen.  I couldn’t wait to get started on these sausages.

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Bronze medal for this Olympic year is, you will be surprised to hear, Tesco Finest British Pork & Red Leicester sausage.  It pained me to rate them so highly, but if nothing else this proved that Rate My Sausage judges each banger objectively on its own merits.  Well done Tesco.

Pork and red Leicester, so you’d hope they would taste cheesy, right?  Well they’re cheesy, no doubt about that.  The rather better than expected, succulent meat is your first flavour, then the super-savoury cheesiness appears.  I’d sum up these bangers as tasting like “cheese on toast, in sausage form” – and what the hell is wrong with THAT combo?  

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Fourth place, and a very well deserved "mentioned in despatches" goes to Peelham Farm Organic Pork & Ruby Veal Sausages.

Great bangers.  And the first time that RMS has ever dedicated a review to a single person, in this case Mikaela.  We really enjoyed these sausages, hence "Superb.  There’s a gamey flavour running throughout which I love and which is strong and insistently ever-present, but not overpowering.  A very grown-up flavour, intense and of concentrated meatiness, the pork and veal jostle and shove like squabbling siblings in the back of mum and dad’s car."

That's the retail awards for 2012.....well done to the winners and thank you for the fabulous bangers!  Here's to a good 2013 for you all.