Bonnie: During the South Beach (SoBe) Wine & Food Festival in February, I met John Rivers, a man who seems to have won life’s lottery.

John, dressed in shorts and a black 4R T-shirt with a face-lighting smile, sat with us in the lobby of The Raleigh Hotel John Riverson Collins Avenue. This former president of a $1.4 billion pharmaceutical-distribution operation turned pit master of 18-hour, slow-smoked Angus brisket is all heart. That’s how his business actually began.

John wanted to give money to a young girl undergoing expensive cancer treatment, but the family wouldn’t accept it. So instead, he organized a barbecue fundraiser to raise money for the family. This charitable work evolved into his “barbecue ministry,” as he continued to do many other volunteer fundraisers for other causes.

When attendees began asking to buy his beef brisket and sauce, he opened 4Rivers Smokehouse in Winter Park, FL, in 2009, basically as a commissary to do his charity work, but also opened it to the public. He set up a butcher block to cut the brisket for sandwiches for the people who might stop by.

4Rivers Smokehouse has no indoor seating, but does have a line of guests waiting up to 45 minutes to eat on picnic tables outside. The restaurant smokes up to 15,000 pounds of meat a week.

Although it seems that everything just fell into place for John, nothing ever does. “I was so close to almost touching my retirement savings… which would have broken my promise to my wife,” explained John. He avoided that. He followed his passion, and the money, prestige and, most importantly, fun followed.

One day John answered the phone to a call from a Food Network representative, asking him to cook at the SoBe event where I met him. John served his barbecue at the festival’s Bubble Q, alongside Bobby Flay, Rick Bayless and Al Roker, just to name a few.

“Food Network was my school,” explained John, “I now get to live what I love to do, working five to 10 times harder — but it doesn’t matter. I love it.”

This FeaturedBite is about John Rivers’ delicious sauce, not his brisket, as I’m the only BiteoftheBest.com team member who’s had the opportunity to sample his lightly smoked, tender brisket slathered in his bottled barbecue sauce. Maybe the BOTB team needs a trip to Winter Park, or his just-opened second place in Winter Garden, as that has indoor seating!

Bryan: There are a million and one barbecue sauces out there and just about everyone thinks they’ve got the best one. Almost everyone who likes to barbecue will let you know that this sauce or that sauce is “absolutely the best,” but what it boils down to for me is always a question of personal taste. A little secret: There is no “absolute best.” There are more than a few good sauces in the marketplace; it’s just about finding those you like — the flavors and the spices, the sweet and the tangy. Some sauces will hit your mark; some will miss. 4Rivers, for us, hit the mark.

We’re not saying that this one is “absolutely the best,” but it’s pretty darn good. The 4Rivers Barbecue Sauce now available to all of us was once only available to those lucky enough to sample John Rivers’ 18-hour, slow-smoked, Angus beef brisket. John spent 20 years perfecting this recipe anytime a family, school or charity was in need of help. With all his giving back, his barbecue grew in popularity and the bottling of his signature sauce commenced.

The true success of 4Rivers Barbecue Sauce led to the eventual leap into the 4Rivers Smokehouse restaurant, which has become one of the most talked-about barbecue restaurants in Florida. Today, 4Rivers Smokehouse continues the tradition of donating proceeds to local communities, schools and charity organizations, maintaining the drive of its humble beginnings.

A wonderful sauce, doing wonderful things.

Eric: Barbecue sauce, like many sauces, is truly an art form (I’d argue otherwise for your basic béarnaise and hollandaise, where there is a standard, defined set of ingredients and technique). You might believe that a barbecue sauce is simple to create, and you’d be right. The flavor of a barbecue sauce is based on a few key ingredients — but than again, so are most well-known sauces. What makes the “stand-out” sauces so different are the secret little nuances, the pinches and dashes of flavor that each chef uses, and protects from others. 4Rivers is a prime example of a sauce full of original flavor. There are honestly thousands of barbecue sauces to choose from — spicy, sweet, savory, hickory, St. Louis style, Memphis style — and with good reason; people’s tastes are different, with discerning palettes.

John Rivers, the creator of 4Rivers Barbecue Sauce, does an amazing job of mixing flavors to create a sauce that can almost be best described as a McDonald’s Big Mac (wait for it). There is no distinguishable flavor to a Big Mac (take a second and try to explain to yourself what it tastes like), but most can agree that the flavor is appealing to everyone… and sadly addicting. The next time you slather 4Rivers Barbecue Sauce on a rack of ribs or some pulled pork, just eat without thinking. You’ll soon realize what flavor really means.