In 2014, we hit the road to find Alabama's Best BBQ Ribs and sampled ribs from restaurants in every corner of the state. (Yeah, it was a tough job.) Before we named a winner (see our favorite here), we narrowed our favorites down to 15 finalists. Those 15 restaurants remain great options for ribs in Alabama, and there's likely one in your town. Check out the list below and tell us your favorite!

306 Barbecue, Athens

About the ribs: "We start with what I consider the best cut you can get, which is a St. Louis-style pork spare rib," Burgreen says. "You are not going to get a bad bite out of it." The ribs are coated with a dry rub, and spend 31/2 to 4 hours in a rotisserie smoker, allowing them to stay tender and moist by basting in their own juices. After they come out of the smoker, they are served with a light drizzle of 306 Barbecue's house-made sauce. "A lot of the same spices used in the rub are used in the sauce, also," Burgreen says. "It just makes a burst of flavor."

Archibald's Bar B.Q., Northport

About the ribs: While the low-and-slow method of smoking pork meat may be the favored technique of many a Southern barbecue cook, it's not the way they do it here at Archibald's. If you know what you're doing, 45 minutes over a bed of hot hickory is plenty of time, Tray Archibald says. The ribs are grilled in a well-seasoned brick pit that's just behind the front counter of the cozy, five-stool shack. They are served with a thin, atomic-orange sauce with that deceptive little kick of heat.

Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Que, Decatur

About the ribs: Big Bob Gibson serves a St. Louis-style rib, which is a traditional spare rib with the ends cut off to give them a more uniform look. The ribs are prepped with a dry-rub and smoked for about 41/2 hours with hickory wood, according to restaurant manager Paul Collins. Finally, they are glazed with Big Bob Gibson's Championship Red Sauce, which was named "Best Barbecue Sauce on the Planet" at the American Royal International Barbecue Sauce Contest in Kansas City.

Big Boyz BBQ, Ashville

About the ribs: Big Boyz offers both baby-back and spare ribs, which are covered with a dry rub and smoked with a mixture of pecan and hickory for up to six hours. The ribs are served without sauce, but Crews' smoking-hot Punk's Gourmet Pepper Sauce is available on the side for those who want to kick them up a notch or two.

Big D's Butts 'N Stuff, Monroeville

About the ribs: Big D's serves baby-back ribs, which Ricketts seasons with a commercial dry rub and smokes using a combination of pecan and cherry wood - using the dry pecan to generate the heat and the greener cherry to create the smoke. On our visit, Ricketts served us a gorgeous rack of ribs that looked like they had just come from a Bon Appetit photo shoot. They tasted just as good as they looked, and the sweet-hot sauce was an ideal companion to the tender meat.

The Brick Pit, Mobile

About the ribs: The Brick Pit takes the "low and slow" method of smoking barbecue to the extreme, as pit boss Jerry Edwards smokes his ribs for up to 12 hours, using pecan wood and no rub. So it's all about the smoke. They are served with a dark, thick sauce that gives them a little bang.

Dreamland Bar-B-Que, Tuscaloosa

About the ribs: Raymond Nevins, as he has done for the past four decades, still mans the pit at night, and Willie Gardner, who has been here for the past eight years, shows us how they do it at Dreamland, flipping each slab of ribs about six times over a hot bed of hickory coals and then basting them in sauce for about five minutes before they come off the rack. "Most people cook their ribs from two to four hours," Dreamland regional manager Matt Kilgore says. "We're cooking ours 45 to 55 minutes - the reason being is that Mr. Bishop used to say he had better things to do than watch a piece of meat smoke all day."

Jim 'N Nick's Community Bar-B-Q, Montgomery

About the ribs: "We have several steps that we take even days before we start cooking our ribs," Gadilhe says. "We actually brine our ribs, then we season our ribs, and then we smoke them over low heat." The brining process takes about 10 hours, and the ribs are smoked with hickory wood for about four hours. Then, to give them a slight crunch on the outside, the Jim 'N Nick's ribs are basted with barbecue sauce and cooked for about another hour until the sauce caramelizes, forming a nice outer shell that complements the moist and smoky meat on the inside. "That sauce is actually kind of cooked into the meat," Gadilhe says. "If you can wipe it off, then they weren't done properly."

Jim's Highway 82 BBQ, Billingsley

About the ribs: Jeanette Hughes covers the ribs with a dry rub, smokes them with hickory wood, and then takes them off the rack, bathes them in a special marinade, and wraps them in aluminum foil for another trip back on the rack of her stainless steel smoker. The result is a steaming slab of ribs that is literally fall-off-the-bone tender, with a nice smoky flavor that is enhanced by the vinegar-based marinade. These ribs are mighty fine just the way they are, but for those who insist, Hughes also offers a thicker, made-from-scratch barbecue sauce that she simmers for about 14 hours. It is available in plastic squeeze bottles on the tables for guests to douse their ribs with as little or as much as they please.

Fat Boy's Bar-B-Que Ranch, Prattville

About the ribs: Fat Boy's pitmaster Greg Bennett cooks the ribs in a well-seasoned steel smoker that Loftin built out of an old hot-water tank that he bought in a scrap yard. The ribs are seasoned with a proprietary dry-rub that is made especially for Fat Boy's from Loftin's secret recipe. "You start with a quality of piece of meat," Loftin says. "That, the hickory wood and then my dry-rub seasoning - the combination of all of those things is what makes our ribs what they are."

Local Joe's Trading Post, Rainbow City

About the ribs: Local Joe's is one of the few places we visited that offers only baby-back ribs. Jodie Stanfield preps his ribs with olive oil and a rub and lets them marinate 24 hours, and when they are ready for the smoker, he cooks them with hickory wood mixed with pecan shells. The ribs smoke for an hour-and-a-half on each side, then each slab is doused with a mixture of vinegar and Local Joe's own barbecue sauce and loosely wrapped in aluminum foil for another hour in the smoker. All of that attention to detail pays off with a rib that is exceptionally tender and moist, with a nice smoke ring and a whole lot of flavor. The meat comes off the bone when you bite into it, but it doesn't fall off the bone.

Sam's Smokehouse, Fayette

About the ribs: Smoked over indirect heat for about three hours, the hickory-flavored ribs are tender and moist and pull easily off the bone with a gentle tug of the teeth. They are served dry with an optional mustard-based sauce that Henderson concocted by adding his own ingredients to a commercial sauce.

Saw's BBQ, Homewood

About the ribs: Smoked over green hickory in a brick pit in the rear of the restaurant, Saw's ribs are big, meaty and moist, with just the thin sliver of a smoke ring along the edges and a nice char on the outside. They are just right on their own, but a little of that Saw's sauce takes them to another level.

Smokey C's Bar-B-Que & Wings, Decatur

About the ribs: Don't let the cute name or the building's fast-food look fool you. Smokey C's smokes some seriously good ribs, which are complemented by a tangy red sauce that they make and bottle for customers who want to take some home.

Sweet Tooth Bar-B-Que, Daleville

About the ribs: Richard Bellone seasons his ribs with a dry rub that he prepares using cayenne pepper, onion powder and finely ground smoked jalapeno peppers and then smokes them for about three to four hours until they are tender enough to pull off the bone with the gentlest of tugs. We tried them with each of the four sauces but preferred the mustard-based sauce, which was also Bellone's recommendation.