Tasting Rubs and Sauces

How do people taste their rubs and sauces when developing them.

When I am working on a sauce, I usually just use a spoon and taste it out of the pot. I recently went to a BBQ sauce festival here in Austin and they had tortillas out to taste the sauces. that turned out to be an ok idea because after a few cups full of just drinking sauce, my palette grew a little tired of it.

With rubs I have struggled to figure out how to taste and adjust them in the short term. Does it come down to just making one, cooking something with it, taking notes after the cook, or do people just taste them direct?

I dip a spoon into sauces.

I taste the rub dry, but mentally reconfigure it, so to speak, into how it will taste cooked and combined with the flavor of whatever I am creating it for.

See this.

I do like Kevin! Although some rubs can be milder after cooked. I saw a great write down on alot of spices and how they handle heat. I know its some were on this board. Will look for it.