For my daughter’s birthday — not the day where she turns one, but her birth day — one of my cook friends gave Emaline a small bag with card. In the bag was a bottle of Gate’s BBQ sauce, from her hometown and BBQ Mecca, Kansas City, and in the card was a note that read, "Maine is a terrible place to get hooked on barbeque."

I decided to give it a little taste, just to make sure it was appropriate for the baby. Thank god it wasn’t.

As I finished off the bottle on leftovers from Buck’s Naked BBQ yesterday, I thought of two things: first were various excuses I could tell little Emaline when, years from now, she wonders out loud where on earth Courtney’s present disappeared to; the second revolved around this BBQ aficionado’s handwritten statement. I absolutely agree with her on one level: In the south, the phenomenon of barbeque (or bar-b-que, or BBQ) is as pervasive as the lupines along the Maine turnpike. It is an incurable disease that feasts on your soul until you bite back, and it’s pretty much impossible to nibble away at a plate of ribs or brisket. You have to dive in with all limbs. BBQ is the event, not the reception, and living in the south would give you a season’s pass to all the best shows.

But here’s where I disagree:

(And let it be known, from here on out, that BBQ is a subject that caters to arguments rather than discussions, and statements of fact rather than gently presented opinions. My preferences regarding the smoked stuff, while stated in cordial terms in this fine journal, are better expressed through eight cans of Schlitz in someone’s backyard, preferably a yard containing stained paper plates, a black smoker filled with pork and belching grey fumes, some lawn chairs, and a tied-up dog that won’t shut the hell up.)

I need to be in Maine to enjoy barbeque because I need my barbeque opportunities to be few and far between. I’m an addict. I can’t tell you if it’s a chemical dependency, like my penchant for Diet Coke, or an emotional one, like my unhealthy obsession with my grandmother’s chocolate-chip cookies, but I have a serious problem. Were I living in Kansas City, or Austin, or North Carolina, I would be a big, sweaty, greasy wreck — and judging by the statistics on the Texas obesity levels, I find my viewpoint justified. Heck, I think Maine’s heading that way without the pork flowing like wine.

Yes, Maine is a fantastic place for me to get hooked on barbeque because it’s rare to find a good place to eat it.

Buck’s is on Route 1, in Freeport, right across the road from the B.F.I., and a few steps away from a fantastic ice cream stand, Classic Custard. The owners of Isabella’s Café and Bakery — located right in the heart of downtown Freeport — opened this roadhouse in a revamped auto-shop a few months ago so that Mainers could "enjoy BBQ the way Buck enjoys life . . . Slow, Low, and Naked." Sign me up!

The concept of "naked" barbeque is as simple as it sounds: sans sauce. Buck’s takes pride in using dry rubs before smoking (pretty standard), and letting the smoked meats speak for themselves.

Here’s where the review gets dicey: I’m a sauce guy.

I don’t like my barbeque naked. I like to dunk and pour, as I did when eating all that leftover pulled pork two days ago. While the soul of barbeque must be the smoke, the holy water is that secret blend of ingredients that vary from joint to joint and anoints my lips with hot, sour, salty, and sweet — runneth over my cup, until I sayeth "when."

Buck’s do all their smoked meats well, with special emphasis on the fantastic smoked sausage you can get by itself or on a bun with peppers and onions. The pulled-pork sandwich was not shy in the least, and the non-sauced meat tasted like, well, pork. The dry rubs don’t shine through quite as much as you’d expect at a place touting the style, and the brisket is chopped, rather than sliced thin. Mixed with the pork, you can barely tell the two apart, much less determine how it tastes on its own. The chicken had the beautiful browned skin of a perfectly smoked bird, but remained a bit dry.

All of the sides were decent, with the special exceptions going to the cornbread and the beans: They were excellent.

There are sauces sitting at the table: a Carolina Mustard Sauce (like a vinegary French’s), a Blueberry BBQ sauce (mostly sweet), and the house sauce (lots of cumin, very sweet as well, with not a lot of finish). We pretty much dominated an entire bottle of the stuff to get the plates the way we like ’em — sauced, moist, and definitely clothed. After all was said and done, though, we left Buck’s feeling pretty good about the barbeque we’d just had. A little piggish, maybe, but still wanting to take that doggie bag home for lunch the next day.

Andy King can be reached at dinnerwithandy@yahoo.com