The Western bacon cheeseburger is defined by a sweet element most burgers never let near the build: barbecue sauce, applied as a primary condiment rather than an accent. A beef patty with cheese, bacon, and onion rings is dressed not with mustard and ketchup but with a thick, sweet, smoky barbecue sauce, and that sauce reorganizes the entire flavor logic. Where a standard cheeseburger runs savory with a sharp acidic counter, this one runs savory-sweet, with the sauce tying the bacon's salt and the onion rings' fried char into one continuous register. The barbecue sauce is the decision that pulls this off the cheeseburger menu and gives it its own name.
The craft is in stacking elements that are all soft or crisp in the right places and binding them with the sauce. The patty is griddled and the cheese added while it is still on the heat so it melts into the seared crust and partially seals the meat. The bacon is rendered crisp and laid against the molten cheese so it stays put and supplies a hard, salty snap. The onion rings are the structural surprise: deep-fried in a batter shell, they bring a second crunch and a sweet allium note that a slice of raw onion cannot, but they also raise the stack, so they have to be sized to sit flat under the bun rather than tipping the build. The barbecue sauce is spread on the bun and threaded through the layers so its sweetness and smoke reach every bite and so it lubricates a build that is otherwise dry crunch on soft meat. The bun is soft and sized to compress to a tall, structured load without fighting it.
The variations are about how far the sweet-and-crunch idea is pushed. The double stacks two patties and doubles the bacon and sauce; the spicy version cuts the barbecue with a hot element; builds that swap the rings for frizzled onions lower the stack and lighten the crunch. Each keeps the barbecue-and-onion-ring core that defines it and changes one element around it, and each belongs to the wider American burger family rather than being crowded in here.