For me I'm really particular about what I use. For briquettes, I love Stubb's no filler except for some vegetable starch to bind the pieces. It burns really clean, producing just a little bit more ash than lump and doesn't give off any weird or harsh chemical odors. When it comes to lump I have 2 brands I love. Malis' and Wicked Good. Both for me tend to be amazingly consistent, with lots of properly sized chunks, burn hot, and burn really clean. The Wicked Good is REALLY dense too, which is fantastic. Its kind of like a middle ground of density between the super expensive Japanese stuff, and the typical western style lump. Only problem with these 2 is no one carries them by me any more, so if I want Wicked Good I have to pay alot to get it shipped to me. Malis' I don't know where else to get from, Shoprite by me used to carry it but now its all Kingsford and randomly some Royal Oak. Though not the good American RO, the cheap and terrible South American Royal Oak. I've been venturing out to try some other brands, Frontier isn't bad, but every bag of it I've gotten has been about 1/4 - 1/3 of the bag being dust and tiny pieces that aren't usable. I sometimes pick up Cowboy, it's consistent but it has improved a lot over the years. I've tried some small bags of other stuff but nothing I can remember or that left an impression.
I've tried some other really expensive ones like Real Montana Lump Charcoal, and my experience was not good.
I just felt I got really screwed by this guy and need to voice my opinion if I can.
I spent a fair bit of money to try this guys Maple lump, and totally got screwed. The ordering process seemed to go OK, but then nothing. Nothing shows up for a month, I try to email him no reply, try to call no answer and leave a voicemail. No response. I try this about once a month for 18 months, even tried contacting the stores he supplied to. Which all told me they were still getting new supplies, but that they didn't have any other contact info. Finally an email I send out around the 18 - 19 month mark finally gets a reply. No explanation just kind of a half sorry that he didn't have any maple wood, but would send me something else and a 5lb bag of apple as well. What I got was all really small, a lot of it just barely stayed in the weber chimney starter ( ie just big enough to not fall through). So I waited 19 months for not even what I ordered and a disappointing product. I came to understand he was in a bad car accident, and I feel terrible for the guy about that. That absolutely sucks to go through that and have to deal with the recovery. I felt bad for getting pissed off at him, at the same time though the stores he supplied where still getting new product, and I found out some people who placed really big orders still got theirs. If he's got some one who can do that, even if my order is less than 100 bucks, it should have gone through.
I'm mad at myself for getting pissed at the guy during those 18+ months, its terrible that he was in a bad accident, and glad he survived. That said though if you have someone running the business, maybe make sure all the orders get filled, not just the big ones, and the ones to stores. I've thought about giving it a try again, but the actual lump that showed up was so disappointing I didn't think it was worth the money.