View this email in your browser

Slingin’ Hash

SC BBQ Newsletter from Destination BBQ

06/27/22

Kindling

Hey <<First Name>>

We’re gettin’ a little saucy today. What’s your favorite sauce?

Having spent most of my first 18 or so years in Cheraw, I have an affinity for vinegar-based sauces. That said, I having lived SC all of my life (minus that 2nd grade year in Raleigh) and in the Lowcountry for the last three decades, mustard-based sauces have found a place on my palate. While I like some tomato-based sauces, those will always come fall far behind.

And then there’s that coleslaw dressing that folks from Alabama try to pass off as a white BBQ sauce. Yea, I know some of y’all love it. All I can say is you can have my portion.

As fate would have it, there are a number of sauce-related topics that recently popped up in the SCBBQ world that we hit on in this issue. In addition, we get an update on Dukes in Aiken after a fire closed it earlier this month, and we spotlight July’s lone BBQ festival and a popular Columbia-area restaurants that’s on the right side of the tracks.

Enjoy,

Jim

PS: If you already get too many emails and don’t need ours to add to the clutter, I certainly understand. There is always an unsubscribe link at the bottom of every email I send. Hopefully, you find these emails valuable, but I never want to overstay my welcome. So feel free to kick me out when the time comes, or I’m liable to linger a little too long. 😉

Lookin’ Good

Time to feature a “scroll-stopping” image. How about this one from Midway BBQ in Buffalo?

A nice shot of some of Midway’s best offerings by food blogger Jess Bentley of Slice of Jess.

Smoke Signals

—Stirring the Sauce

In an issue dedicated to BBQ events and BBQ sauces, the main news focuses a new competition that combines the two. The 1st Annual 'Getting Saucy' BBQ Sauce Competition has been scheduled and announced.

Yep, a bbq SAUCE competition. Now, that’s an interesting twist. I’m still waiting for someone to tell me about SC Hash competition, but a sauce competition is something I can get behind.

I have to confess my wife’s sauce recipe remains the best I’ve tried, but it would be tasty to get a sample of the competition. And looks like they’re expecting a number of competitors:

“Dozens of competitive sauce makers from around our state will go head to head, or rather, “sauce to sauce”, in the mild red, hot red, mustard, vinegar, and specialty categories. Winners in each category will be awarded, with one winner declared the official South Carolina BBQ Sauce Grand Champion.”

So, how do we know if it’s going to be a fair fight? Sounds like all the competitors will have to serve their sauce with the exact same, unadulterated proteins:

“Competitors will be provided with the pork and prohibited from additionally seasoning the pork itself in any way. This will assure that all competitors start with the same pork product and leave the sauce to shine through. The determining factor in the tasting competition will only be the sauce.”

The inaugural event takes place at Firefly Distillery in North Charleston from 11 am - 6 pm on September 24.

The event supports The Arc of the Low Country, a charity whose mission is to provide individuals and their families with programming and services for those with physical and intellectual disabilities.

Tickets are already on sale.

—Hot Dog Sauce?

It’s not what you think…

This is a story of perseverance and doggedness that led an Illinois John Deere worker to the SC coast and the shelves of over 100 stores in multiple states with a SC mustard sauce that’s built on years of experience and effort.

“I started smoking [meats] like 15 years ago in the backyard,” Brandon Close told Michael Pham in a Charleston City Paper article. “I worked for John Deere and on Saturdays and Sundays, I’d be spending them in the backyard with the smoker.

“I read an article about Carolina barbecue sauce and had never made it before. I did it for a college presentation on different barbecue sauces, actually. We were close, but we weren’t traditional Carolina barbecue sauce. It’s evolved from there a lot, obviously.”

Indeed, Pham traces Close’s path from Illinois to Lowcountry restaurants like Bessinger’s and Sticky Fingers, among others, while he perfected his palate.

Then, Pham shares Close’s efforts to bring Chipper Dog BBQ sauce, named after his Olde English bulldog, to the market.

Once he had perfected his sauce and found the right “co-packer,” Close turned his attention to Piggly Wiggly around the state.

“I just went to every one of them,” he said. “I would start out by calling them. If I did that and talked to them beforehand, then stopped in and showed them the product, it was about a 90% chance I was gonna get in. If I just cold call and stop in, about a 30% chance.”

Piggly Wiggly, IGA, KJ, and Perfect 10 Distributors soon joined in, and recently Lowes Foods added Chipper Dog to their lineup.

His efforts clearly worked. He caught my attention by November 2021. As a result, I included Chipper Dog’s sauce in our first ever SCBBQ gift guide.

Hot ‘n Fast

— Dukes Update — As I reported in a previous issue, Dukes Bar-B-Que in Aiken recently closed due to a fire.

“It was in our main cook room,” owner Christian Judy told The Post and Courier. “Our rib pit managed to reignite some way, somehow ... We’ve never had it re-ignite. By the time we saw it there, the flame got to the grease and it went up quick.”

Both The Pot Smoker BBQ in Aiken and Atomic City Smokers, a local competition BBQ team, each held their own separate fundraisers to help Dukes through a tough time.

Fortunately, The Post and Courier reports that Dukes is “hoping” to reopen in July.

Where There’s Smoke

Here is the only upcoming BBQ festival on the books in July in SC.

The Smoke Ring

In each edition, we’ll metaphorically spin the SCBBQ globe and randomly select an SC BBQ joint to spotlight.

This time, the globe stopped spinning on Railroad BBQ in Columbia.

Railroad BBQ on Hampton Street in Columbia stands out as a local neighborhood restaurant that celebrates great Southern food and South Carolina’s unique place in history.

Its motto proclaims it’s “The best darn BBQ on both sides of the tracks.” By that, they mean they want to reach everyone, no matter which side of the tracks they live on.

As they say on their website: “Drop on by, we guarantee that our smoked meat ‘ain’t nothing but the truth!'”

Check out Railroad BBQ