Two very different sausages go by the name hot link, in Chicago and Texas. Hot links in Chicago are available mostly on the South Side at soul food barbecue parlors. They are ruggedly cut pork spiced with sage, pepper, and fennel, slow-cooked in the pit to a point where the ends develop a crunch but the inside is as succulent as a breakfast link. Those who like the ends ask for theirs well-done, which offers extra chew. Chicago hot links are served slathered with hot, tangy red barbecue sauce and accompanied by French fries and white bread.
Texas smoke house portrait: A sausage ring propped up by a pile of brisket slices and sided by white bread.
A Texas hot link is all-beef, cooked by indirect heat so that the natural pork-gut casing bursts with juice as soon as it is severed with a knife or simply broken apart. It is so juicy that sauce would be redundant. Preferred side dishes are raw onion slices, pickles, a hunk of orange cheese, and, of course, slices of white bread that are especially handy for sopping up juices. (See also dry link.)
A common variation of the hot link throughout Texas barbecue country is the sausage ring, a horseshoe-shaped, string-tied gut packed with beef (and sometimes also a measure of ground pork) and, usually, plenty of pepper.