The production and consumption of meat products in the Brazilian market has been increasing in recent years. Bacon is one of the most consumed meat products due to its pleasant sensory characteristics, obtained from the curing and smoking processes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of the type of wood and liquid smoke used in the smoking process on the sensory characteristics and overall acceptance of traditional bacon. Five samples were prepared using three types of wood (Eucalyptus, Acacia and Bamboo) and two types of liquid smoke (HCL1 and HCL2). The most consumed commercial bacon (BC) in Brazil, was also used in this study. One hundred consumers used the Check-all-that-apply (CATA) questions to sensorially characterize the samples and to describe the ideal bacon. The group of consumers was composed of 86% of Brazilians and 14% of foreigners and two clusters (C1 and C2) were identified, each one with 50 consumers. In C1 (96% Brazilians), the sample smoked with bamboo had the highest acceptance, while the least accepted sample was the one smoked with Acacia. For the group C2 (76% of Brazilians), the two samples with higher acceptance were HCL2 and Acacia, while the sample smoked with HCL1 was the least accepted. However, for both groups, the ideal product was characterized by the following terms: little oily appearance, color of red meat, very smoked flavor, woody aroma, and tender and juicy texture. For the C1, the closest samples to the ideal were the ones smoked with bamboo and the BC. The group C2 was correlated with the sample smoked with HCL2 and the commercial. Through the penalty analysis it was possible to observe differences among the real samples and the ideal sample, and evaluate their impact on the acceptance.