The first German settlements were in present day Dorchester County, and then successive waves of settlers moved on up the rivers to the counties of Orangeburg, Lexington, Newberry and the northwestern part of Richland County. (The middle and southern parts of Richland were settled by English settlers.) These German settlers brought with them, in addition to their European farming style and the Lutheran Church, the common use of mustard.

South Carolina mustard sauce can be clearly traced to those German settlers and is still in abundant evidence today, even after 250 years, in the names of the families who sell mustard based sauces and mustard based barbecue to the public. The Bessinger family is the most prominent in the mustard based barbeque business, but other German names are legion in the South Carolina barbeque business - Shealy, Hite, Sweatman, Sikes, Price, Lever, Meyer, Kiser, and Zeigler are other examples and there are many more. (There is even a Dooley's barbeque in Lexington County, which everyone generally thinks of as an Irish name, but which comes from the German Dula family [pronounced Doole], as in the infamous Thomas Dula who became "Tom Dooley" in the Kingston Trio's 1960s song, "Hang down your head Tom Dooley.")

The Scottish families who settled primarily in Williamsburg County in present day South Carolina low country are the most famous South Carolina preparers of Vinegar and Pepper barbeque. The most prominent present day Scottish barbeque family is probably the Brown family, but there is also McKenzie, Scott, McCabe and many others who have remained, like the German families, true to their heritage. This simple Vinegar and Pepper sauce is the first, and therefore the oldest, of the South Carolina basting sauces.