SC Barbecue Trail

Linkdown: 12/2/15

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– Yahoo Travel goes on the hunt for barbecue in South Carolina

– The Infatuation’s list of best barbecue in New York

– The latest reviews from Marie, Let’s Eat!: Barbecue Kitchen, Mickey Pigg’s BBQ, and Tomlin’s BBQ

– Stubb’s Bottled Barbecue Sauce is suing Stubb’s Bar-B-Q

– TMBBQ explores the many briskets of Texas

– Attention Rudy: Eater’s got a map of where to get the best pulled pork in Austin

– Grayson Currin of The Independent says that Calvin Trillin’s recent New Yorker piece missed out on the best eastern NC “barbecue” in the form of  soy recreated to mimic the dish; I can’t say that I disagree with Calvin Trillin not trying it out while in NC

In fact, to my mind, he missed some of the best barbecue in the state, even if it’s not barbecue at all: soy, smoked low and slow, pulled apart by hand and drenched with a vinegar-based sauce. It is a regional delicacy, reinvented for reasons beyond upscale dining.

Linkdown: 1/7/15

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– More on the closing of Jimmy’s Barbecue, whose closing “signals change with barbecue” in the Lexington area

The closure of Jimmy’s continues a change in the local barbecue scene. Five years ago, seven restaurants participated in the annual Barbecue Festival. The closing of John Wayne’s Barbecue and Whitley’s Barbecue dropped the number to five, and now it will fall to four. The remaining restaurants and festival organizers may want to consider adding some of the county’s other barbecue restaurants to gain more manpower and food for the annual event.

– Yahoo! Travel calls The Barbecue Festival in Lexington the “can’t-miss event” in North Carolina

– Red, Hot, and Blue is opening a second RDU location, this time in Cary

– A look back at the Kansas City bbq scene in 2014 (h/t @mossr)

– A Reuter’s article on Daniel Vaughn, BBQ snob, from a few week’s back

“When I saw him walking up, I was a bit nervous. He can make or break a business,” said Matt Proctor, the pit master and owner of Stillwater.

– Is this guy (the so-called “brisket bandit”) kind of like the Robin Hood of brisket? Update: looks like he’s been caught as of Monday

– Speaking of brisket, it is more expensive than ever

– Our review posted earlier this week, but here are 8 things you need to know about The Improper Pig from Charlotte Five

– The SC BBQ Trail now has an interactive map:

– File this under “The More You Know”:

Linkdown: 12/3/14

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– How Do You Spell Barbecue? Personally, I go with “barbecue”

Back in the 18th century, there were almost as many ways to spell barbecue as there were people cooking it: barbacue, barbicu, borbecue. In his diary entry for September 18, 1773, George Washington recorded that he attended, “a Barbicue of my own giving at Accotink.”

He may have been the Father of our Country, but Washington’s spelling didn’t stick. By the time of the Civil War, Americans had settled on two primary versions—barbecue and barbeque—and that’s as close as we’ve come to consensus. The North Carolina Barbecue Society has come down on the side of the “c”, but their neighbors in the Palmetto State, home of the South Carolina Barbeque Association, are more prone to go with the “q,” as are the folks out in Missouri in the Kansas City Barbeque Society.

– Southport has a new barbecue restaurant in Terry’s North Carolina Bar-B-Que & Ribs

– Zagat: Arrogant Swine brings Carolina ‘Cue to Brooklyn

– Speaking of Arrogant Swine, I haven’t linked to a Tyson Ho blog entry on SeriousEats in a few weeks, but here’s a link to his latest, on changing his menu and taking feedback; if you haven’t read the whole series, do yourself a favor and catch up asap

We’ve already cut two items from the menu: turkey legs and corn pone. There’s a certain amount of market efficiency when it comes to a barbecue menu. Certain items appear everywhere because they’re guaranteed hits: brisket, ribs, pulled pork, and chicken are time-tested and reliable. Sometimes you win big when you go against the grain, but for the most part one would do well to heed the wisdom of crowds.

– The SC Barbecue Trail marketing campaign (specifically the web series) wins some accolades by highlighting the state’s barbecue tradition

– An Army veteran has opened a NC barbecue restaurant in Tampa, Three Brothers BBQ Smokehouse

– Austin writer Matthew Odam picks apart a recent WSJ article on Austin barbecue that just plain got some things wrong

– Marie, Let’s Eat! begins their 12 chapter (!!) circumnavigation of barbecue restaurants in South Carolina and eastern North Carolina with Maurice’s in Columbia, some less than great places around Florence, and Parker’s in Wilson

Linkdown: 5/21/14

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– Texas really isn’t taking TripAdvisor’s list that listed them #3 behind Georgia and NC barbecue very well; no really, they aren’t taking it well at all

– The Charlotte Observer Archive Twitter account (@Observer Archive) has this archive photo about Stanton’s Barbeque and Fish Camp Fly-In Restaurant in Bennettsville, SC (across the NC/SC state line from Laurinburg) that is still in existence today:

– Trucking Info is definitely not my usual source of barbecue content, but here’s an article entitled “I Came to an Engine Teardown and Learned About Barbecue”

Inspired by Shell’s relationship with the BBQ Pitmasters show on Destination America, the barbeque pit will be used for industry and customer events. The pit, which can cook enough barbeque to feed 100 or more people, was built by champion barbeque grillers, Pitt’s and Spitt’s.

Houston-based, Pitt’s and Spitt’s has more than 75 years of combined experience designing and fabricating custom competition barbeque trailers, grills, pits and smokers. The Pitt’s & Spitt’s World Champion Cooking Team has won over 30 barbecue and cooking awards, and Shell Rotella is a sponsor of the team this year.

– “The Best Barbecue I’ve Ever Had Was Made by a Bunch of Damn Yankees”

– Alex and Zoe Ranucci of Ranucci’s Big Butt BBQ, Grand Championship-winning team of the 2013 Q City Championship, were featured in the first issue of a new magazine called Barbecue America

– Bill Spoon’s is featured on this list of “great barbecue restaurants” from USA Today as part of their National Barbecue Month coverage

– Both Rodney Scott and the SC Barbecue Trail get a mention in this article entitled “SC barbecue business gets a boost from social media” (h/t bbqboard)

– The Blue Ridge BBQ & Music Festival is looking for between 300 and 500 volunteers for June 13 and 14

– Elliot Moss’ previous barbecue concept, Buxton Hill, is dead. Long live his new concept, Buxton *Hall*

Moss’ thing is whole-hog, wood-fired barbecue. “He’s bringing a really artisanal, traditional approach to barbecue that he feels has been missing from a lot of barbecue in the south,” said Irani.

Many Asheville barbecue restaurants, including 12 Bones, Luella’s and Little Pigs Bar-B-Que, use smokers fired with both gas and wood, a system that makes it easier for cooks to control time and temperature while cooking.

– Charlotte-based food writer Keia Mastrianni accompanied two restaurateurs from San Francisco on an epic Carolinas barbecue tour (research for their now-opened barbecue restaurant Smokestack) which included Lexington #1, Wilber’s, B’s Barbecue, Scott’s Barbecue, and several more; part 1 and part 2

– The Charlotte couple behind The Great NC BBQ Map gets interviewed in Charlotte Magazine this month and shares a few more details about the map coming next month

AA: You promised to be comprehensive. That’s a big statement.

AAF: We have talked about the national chains and statewide chains and things like that. And definitely statewide chains are going to be on there, but we’re leaning toward not doing the nationwide ones because that feels a little different and it’s not so much about North Carolina history and heritage and everything.