You could do a half and half combination of beef and chicken stocks–you know it won’t taste the same, but it should be good. Grape juice might be a good substitute too.

I just used the regular kind (that’s in the general spice section at the store), but the ones you mention would be equally as good, if not better. I’ve used (not in this) chipotle chili powder and that’d be great here.

That would be a tall order. What I’d do is not put in the last amount of berries–which are really just a garnish–and putting the sauce through a sieve/food mill. If you want to serve this to folks with dental issues, that’s what I’d do. You could try it with pitted cherries. It’d probably be just as nice.

Unsalted butter is way better to cook with than salted. It doesn’t seem to scorch so easily. Salted butter varies in the amount of salt used in it–it’s not standard. Using the unsalted lets me control the amount of salt, which is especially important if you are watching sodium intake and many people are now. My chops were medium-well at this cook time.