Latest / BBQ Therapy / #54 Jay Lobello - Korte Meat Processing | How a Small-Town Meat Market Became a BBQ Destination

Transcript

#54 Jay Lobello - Korte Meat Processing | How a Small-Town Meat Market Became a BBQ Destination · BBQ Therapy

0:00
There's a lot of people that the summer sauces and the snack
0:02
sticks, that process is probably what's built this company.
0:06
It's I think it's one of the unique things that that you
0:09
don't see too often and it doesn't like open fire still
0:12
over Hickory wood. I've never seen that in any
0:15
other processor plant just because of that time frame.
0:20
But that's kind of what's separates us a little bit on
0:23
that. It's very popular in the
0:25
Highland area. I love everybody dies for they
0:29
love it. It's come in like herds during
0:31
the holidays and we sell tons of it.
0:34
Listen, learn, get inspired. I'm Tavis Bryant and this is BBQ
0:39
Therapy like subscribe and follow to help grow the BBQ
0:44
therapy community. Also visit my website at
0:47
www.barbecuetherapypodcast.com. BBQ BBQ off get.
0:52
Your BBQ off, get your BBQ off. Welcome to the BBQ Therapy
1:00
Podcast. My name is Tavis Bryant and
1:03
today we're stepping into the heart of Highland, IL.
1:06
We're stepping aside a family legacy that began in 1969 with
1:11
two men, Alfred Cordy and Don Rickster, and a belief that
1:16
honest craft and Midwest pride could feed a community for
1:19
generations. That little shop grew into a
1:22
10,000 square foot institution and today it stands as a 54,000
1:27
square foot powerhouse with the world's largest drying room.
1:31
Ward renting sausages, coast to coast shipping, and a reputation
1:35
as the best in the Midwest competition.
1:38
Pit masters travel states for their meats.
1:40
Deer hunters trust them with family traditions.
1:43
Do it yourself. Sausage makers use their
1:46
seasoning blends and the community still sees them as
1:49
their butcher shop. This is the Courtney meat
1:52
processing story. But today we're going deeper
1:54
than that. This is story behind the legacy.
1:57
And today we have Jay Labello representing them.
2:01
Welcome to the show. I got one rule.
2:03
Make yourself at home. I have no sponsors so speak
2:05
freely. Thank you.
2:08
Thanks for having me. And you did your homework.
2:09
You did good job. Awesome.
2:10
Perfect. I'm trying.
2:14
All right, I'm going to start off with a quick story.
2:18
I did extra homework. All right, The earliest story
2:22
I've seen from 1969 back I guess 1960, I guess they were two
2:26
brothers, Joe Cordy and Al Cordy, and I guess they were
2:31
doing construction. And then Al Cordy, he correct me
2:35
if I'm wrong, he joined up with Don Richter and they formed Meat
2:40
Butchering and processing only in 1968.
2:44
And I guess the construction company built the store for
2:48
them, and that's how they became Cordy Richter Meat Processes,
2:52
which is now Cordy Meats in Highland.
2:56
Yep, pretty much, Yeah, yeah. So Alfred Cordy, who is Kyle
3:00
Cordy? The owner of my brother-in-law.
3:03
Now that's his grandpa. So his grandpa and another I'll
3:07
Rick or Don Richter, who started at Courtney Meats.
3:12
They worked at a butcher shop. There's about five of them that
3:16
owned it back in the 1960s fifties.
3:21
And then they them to decide to go off on their own and they
3:24
went off their own and started up the little.
3:26
It wasn't locker meat market at that time where people used to
3:29
come in and have a key and open up their lockers and come get
3:32
their meat and stuff like that. And then a retail, no retail at
3:36
all, basically just flat out butcher shop, deer processing
3:40
plant. I think the first year they
3:42
processed deer, they processed 17 deer the very first year.
3:47
And now we're almost the 4000. Wow, a little bit, a little bit
3:55
of a difference, but yeah, then so then after Alfred and the Don
4:00
Richter era, Dave Cordy, which is Kyle Cordy's his dad.
4:04
He had bought out. He bought his dad and Don
4:09
Richter out. I want to say I'm probably wrong
4:12
on the dates, but it's in the late 90s, probably mid 90s
4:18
around there. And so then I worked for Dave
4:21
Cordy, which it's Kyle's dad again.
4:25
I think recently Kyle just bought out his parents and we
4:30
went from about 13,000 square foot building to about a 50 +
4:35
1000 square foot building a year and a couple months ago.
4:37
And yeah, like I said, now we're processing 4000 a year.
4:44
Killing the kills been up and down.
4:47
However, it's when them guys did it back in the day when I worked
4:50
at the old plant. I've been here for 25 years.
4:54
So I've seen, I've seen a lot from growing to all that.
4:59
But the butchering parts always been up and down.
5:01
We used to do. We still do.
5:04
When we're at the old plant. We did about 15 to head of beef
5:09
and 10 to 15 head of hogs an hour.
5:12
We're trying to get more and more, but the market's been
5:14
pretty rough. But we're in like the 20s and
5:17
30s of beef and probably 20s and 30s a hog.
5:21
So we've upped it a little bit. But we'd like to do more for
5:23
sure. But it's all just little steps.
5:28
Yeah, that's wow, that's a lot. All right, let's ask this first
5:32
question is I guess is most people never think of where do
5:36
y'all source y'all meat and what do you look for before it enter
5:40
every enters the building? So when I said we processed beef
5:44
cattle, hogs, those are all like farmer local farmers that have
5:51
sold their animals, they went out and got their customers and
5:55
then we just custom process it for them.
5:58
Years ago they would buy or even when I was first starting we
6:02
would buy and sides of beef and try to give it the process the
6:06
animal down every cut and try to sell it out and say that we sell
6:11
farm raised animals. But it just really the money
6:16
side of it, profit side of it, it doesn't make a lot of sense.
6:20
There's just not a lot of margin there, a lot of weight, a lot of
6:23
burger, a lot of excess stuff that you can't sell.
6:26
So we basically get box meat and for all of our retail area,
6:33
we'll get Cargill UWP out of Wisconsin's a big one.
6:38
And then we typical here like Cisco, U.S.
6:41
Foods and stuff like that. But on the higher end meats,
6:44
which we, I don't know, we deal a lot with, we have a lot of
6:47
other sources that we try to get the best we can at the highest
6:53
quality we can on that end. But there's so many different
6:57
that's I guess a big part of the meat industry.
6:59
It's grown so much and there's so much more places and access
7:05
to get high end meat and everyone's selling it.
7:08
And that's where you got to separate yourself from like your
7:11
box stores. And that's what we do.
7:13
We're we're more of a higher end, I would say higher end meat
7:19
market, trying to separate ourselves from your lower grades
7:24
of Walmart and stuff like that. Hey, what's 1 mistake people
7:28
make when they assume all meat sources are the same?
7:33
There's a lot of big mistakes. We definitely you can buy meat
7:40
all over the world and imported in like Mexico and Canada and
7:45
stuff. We will I will not buy other
7:48
than like Japanese Wagyu and an Australian Wagyu.
7:52
I will not like buy in source and like your commodity choice.
7:59
It's all United States and a lot out of Nebraska, Omaha, which we
8:05
have local farmers that ship their cattle to that area.
8:09
So not saying that we'll get that cattle, but it's nice that
8:13
we are supporting like that. We buy out those bigger
8:16
companies that are buying cattle in our area or stuff like that.
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So we try to stick to even though it's box meat and people
8:25
sometimes frown upon that. There's a lot of conspiracies on
8:28
a lot of stuff in this world, but everything we get in, I
8:32
would not be afraid to eat. And it's all United States
8:36
homegrown right here. Yeah, exactly.
8:40
All right, let's talk about the drying room first.
8:42
Can you explain to people like me and other people what is the
8:45
drying room? So in our deer, deer in our
8:51
summer sausage process, what we do is we'll we still smoke in
8:54
the old fashioned way, which a lot of people don't do that.
8:57
We still have an open fire. And I will put, I'm probably
9:02
going to be wrong on these numbers because we've grown, but
9:06
I think we can probably put about a thousand 1200 lbs of
9:11
summer sausage in one smokehouse.
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We got two of them. So we'll smoke in 48 hours and
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it's a cold smoke. So it's just, it won't get up to
9:21
like your legality of temperature, but we'll take it
9:26
from there to our drying room, which is a controlled like room
9:32
that has controls the moisture, controls the humidity, controls
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the air flow and all that stuff where it dries the product like
9:39
a exactly, pretty much exactly the same every time.
9:44
And then once that process, which is like a summer sausage
9:48
product that's about 3 to 4 weeks.
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I hate like drying and they're hanging in there.
9:53
And then we'll take it to our, our other smokehouse and we'll
9:57
put no smoke on it, but we'll get it up to temperature, legal
10:01
temperature to be able to sell it to the consumer.
10:06
So the drying room's a huge part of the process.
10:09
And that's where a lot like we, like I said, we do 4000 deer and
10:14
a lot of people, if you bring a deer early November, you
10:16
probably won't get it back till June, April, April.
10:20
It takes a while. There's a lot of people that the
10:23
summer sauces and the snack sticks.
10:25
That process is probably what's built this company.
10:28
It's, I think it's one of the unique things that that you
10:31
don't see too often and it doesn't like open fire still
10:35
over Hickory wood. I've never seen that in any
10:37
other processor plant just because of that time frame.
10:42
But that's kind of what's separates us a little bit on
10:45
that. It's very popular in the
10:47
Highland area. I love everybody dies for they
10:51
love it. It's come in like herds during
10:53
the holidays and we sell tons of it.
10:56
We stock up, I don't even know how many pallets of summer
10:59
sausages beforehand so we can keep up with the holidays.
11:03
It's crazy. It's a crazy number of poundage,
11:05
but it's pretty. It's unique for sure.
11:08
Not too many people do it. Oh wow, that's cool.
11:12
All right, And let's go talk about the old shop and the new
11:15
shop. So apparently the, from my
11:19
research again, 40 Construction built the Wall Street Journal
11:28
printing plant that y'all moved into, which is a coincidence.
11:34
And that's wow, All right. When y'all, I guess what led to
11:38
the moment where y'all decided that, OK, we got to get bigger,
11:41
way bigger? A lot of conversation, like I
11:46
said, Kyle is my brother-in-law and his sister Amy, who are now
11:51
the full owners of it. A lot of conversation between US
11:55
and a few other workers and basically we were busting the
11:59
seams and the old building we are, it was add on after add on,
12:03
after add on after add on. It's just eventually ran out of
12:07
real estate and we actually had a piece of property bought right
12:12
across, not about two miles away that we are going to build a
12:16
probably about 20 to 30,000 square foot building.
12:19
And we always had our eyes on that.
12:21
The piece that we bought because it butts up, it butted up right
12:24
to our existing building and it had 10 acres of like ground.
12:29
So we really wanted to buy the ground right there, but they
12:32
wouldn't sell, never would sell. And then eventually Wall Street
12:34
Journal came up for sale. And back to your question is
12:39
just like we basically sat down and said we either got to get
12:42
smaller or get bigger because we were just we're, our efficiency
12:47
was terrible. We couldn't get much done just
12:50
because we're getting so big. It's so quick and it, we're just
12:57
wasting more time than produce production.
12:59
It's because of the building that would flow the way the flow
13:01
was the way the workers are on top of each other.
13:04
I was, I would have to go in there after hours or on my day
13:08
off to ship meat out because I have to bring out pallets of
13:11
meat. And we didn't have the room to
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do it, like just physically didn't have the room to to
13:16
actually do it while we're working during the hours.
13:21
So it was one of the things like you got, we got to decide if
13:24
we're going to get smaller, go back to employing 10 people or
13:30
employing 50 people. I think once that opportunity of
13:32
buying that Wall Street Journal, that building next door that was
13:37
we base at that time, we basically got double the real,
13:42
double the space square foot. And I don't know if half the
13:46
price is what you want to call it, but it was a better deal at
13:49
the end that came up and it was no brainer, but they jumped on
13:53
it. So it's obviously we're year
13:58
one, about a year and a couple months into it.
14:00
And there's been a lot of ups and downs.
14:03
But when you go from 13,000 square foot building to 50
14:07
there's you're going to expect that.
14:08
And then you got, like I said, we hired on probably 30 extra
14:13
people and you know how that goes these day ages.
14:17
Hiring and having a good employee can be tough at times,
14:21
but. Were y'all even worried about if
14:24
scaling up that the quality may go down or people worried about
14:29
the quality? Because a lot of time when
14:30
people get bigger, people be worried about quality.
14:33
Yeah, that's something that it's definitely been talked about of.
14:40
But that's like our main thing is that we never wanted to do
14:43
that just to pump out. We've still stuck to the same
14:47
stuff we've done. That's the only thing we know.
14:49
That's what's been successful. So I think that's what we're
14:52
sticking at. I don't know, there could
14:54
probably be ways to make easier money and better, but it's just
14:59
one of the things that we pride ourselves on and just putting
15:02
out quality stuff. And actually the day and age of
15:05
social media and there's a local Facebook page and someone put
15:11
something about that and lock. I just I try to stay away from
15:15
commenting on anything, which I don't usually, but there was a
15:17
lot of comments like they're an old Cordy meets an old school
15:21
family owned business. They've kept their ways, which
15:24
meant a lot to read like at least the community realized
15:27
that and they it's a strong community that supports Cordy
15:30
very well. And yeah, we've always just,
15:34
we're still trying to do what we've been successful and why
15:36
changing not may as well not yeah, back down the quality,
15:40
just keep on doing what we're doing and hopefully people pick
15:43
quality over price. Which I got the reputation out
15:50
there, so it is definitely. We do.
15:51
We get, like I said, we got a good community that supports us
15:54
and that helps out a lot. The Cordy name is a very big
15:58
name. Obviously you've done your
16:00
homework, but. It is.
16:03
So there's a lot of Cordy's out there.
16:04
Cordy Construction Cordy, let Johnny Construction, Cordy Meade
16:07
score. There's a lot of Cordy's.
16:09
Yeah, it is. Yeah.
16:12
I got some money in that family. All right.
16:16
Can you for someone? I've saw the pictures online.
16:19
It's like a big supermarket. But can you describe the new
16:22
store for someone who's never stepped inside of it?
16:26
And when I came and went in the old store, it's about the old
16:28
store is about the size of a living room.
16:30
And now we're in about AI think that retails it might be 10,000
16:37
square foot you walk in, we got 3 cash registers.
16:40
We got a banquet room. We actually have a little
16:44
gambling room off to the side there, which some of the
16:48
employees enjoy that we got a full kitchen.
16:51
We serve lunch every day. That's the one thing that the
16:55
whole deal, that's probably the only thing that we didn't do at
16:57
the old place, which was a big question mark in our minds, like
17:01
how we going to do this because we've never done this before,
17:05
but it's going over pretty well. We get a lot of good feedback
17:08
and we get a lot of people waiting in line for lunch every
17:11
day. That's good.
17:11
And so then we got that. We got a banker room, like I
17:15
said, that we rent out. We have BBQ classes.
17:18
We have anybody can come rent it a certain price like that
17:23
certain price. And we got full deli and we got
17:26
every cheese, every steak and from choice to prime to Wagyu to
17:32
Japanese Wagyu. We got freezer cases upon
17:35
freezer cases of all kinds of stuff.
17:37
We brought in obviously pizzas and stuff like that and ice
17:42
cream and we got dairy. We got a little bit of produce,
17:46
not a whole lot of that, but just your basic produce.
17:49
We have a huge BBQ area with a lot of local, local guys that we
17:57
love. We like to support that.
17:59
When I say local Saint Louis, Memphis, like we got all
18:04
obviously all Blues hog stuff, Heath Rile stuff, we got
18:07
Sterling Smith's blue booty stuff.
18:09
A lot of guys that we I like to do business with that do
18:12
business with us meet whiskey boys out of Memphis.
18:15
We we got all kinds of seasonings and we got a liquor,
18:19
little beer cave, little liquor area.
18:23
And what else I'm missing? Like a Walmart.
18:29
Yeah, it's, it's a little bit, it's quite a difference.
18:33
A lot of a lot of different stuff going on, which like I
18:37
said, that's been the biggest challenge because a lot of that
18:40
stuff's new to all of us. We before on our old place, we
18:44
had, when I first started working there in our retail
18:48
case, we had obviously we had ham and cheese like deli, but we
18:51
had hamburger. We had two trays of hamburger
18:54
that's always sold. And then I actually worked at
18:56
Schnucks. I cut meat at Schnucks before I
19:00
worked here. And I'm, I was on the retail
19:03
side more and I moved, came in there and revamped the whole
19:08
retail area on the old, at the old building and it's just blew
19:11
up. Like, not trying to say I did it
19:14
all, but I definitely brought a lot of stuff that I learned
19:17
there to hear and it's just kicked off like crazy, like
19:22
wildfire. Wow how many total employees
19:25
y'all have? They grew up to 40.
19:28
We first moved in there and we had fifty, I think 5152.
19:33
Now we're like around 45 ish. Who knows?
19:36
I can't. I don't know.
19:38
Half of them. No.
19:40
All right. And what is something that your
19:43
team do every day that the public will never notice, but
19:46
you're deeply proud of? A lot of people think that I
19:51
just do BBQ year round, sell BBQ like competition meat, which has
19:55
gotten very big. But I was obviously I don't just
20:00
do that. There's a lot more to my job
20:02
than just slinging BBQ. But man, I don't know, I'd say
20:07
we the proudest thing is we give back to the community in our
20:11
area just as much as they give us.
20:12
I think the Cordy family is always willing to, you can
20:17
imagine a business that gets hit up for donations and stuff like
20:21
that daily if we get it's, but we do what we can.
20:25
I feel like that's the, we're still, we're a big, we're in a
20:29
big building, but we're still like a family.
20:33
I still consider us a small business, a very tight family
20:36
and Cordy family and I and A lot of the workers there, we're
20:40
just, we are like family. It's pretty, it's pretty good to
20:43
work there for them. But yeah, I think give them just
20:46
helping the community out where we can.
20:48
And I think that means more than selling meat or anything like
20:51
that. Just like me and Kyle, we went
20:54
to the high school last year and we cooked.
20:57
We tried tried to teach them how to cook the corner or the foods
21:01
class ribs and that was cool. Just doing little stuff like
21:04
that you don't necessarily see or hear about, but stuff like
21:09
that, it was cool to do. Yeah, 'cause it's something
21:12
different and may mean a lot, 'cause they may catches catch
21:15
somebody attention and they'll get into it early versus like
21:19
me, for example, I got into it late, I got into it during COVID
21:23
and like I'm in my 40s, but that's when it caught my
21:28
attention and that's when I came across the pellet grill and all
21:31
that. I didn't know a pellet grill
21:33
existed until covet time. But really exactly growing up in
21:38
our community, all I seen was kettle grills and all that.
21:40
I've never seen a pellet grill. So it was like the strangest
21:43
thing ever when I seen what is this?
21:46
So that's what I bought 1. I got my stimulus check, I was
21:49
still working so I bought 1 and I like the life would change
21:52
forever because I was like, I got to practice cooking meat and
21:56
not have to worry about trying to figure out the grill because
21:58
I was always all that lighter fluid on there and everything
22:02
tasted like lighter fluid I would get.
22:03
I got frustrated to stop. And then once I got the pellet
22:06
grill, I got better with the meat And then that's when I
22:10
started working with other grills and stuff because now I
22:13
know what I'm doing. But like I said, you starting
22:16
them off early and right, I didn't know competitions,
22:21
competitions existed and you could actually go out to them
22:24
and later on. Yeah, we actually brought 2
22:27
drums to the high school and even the teachers, not that
22:30
they're like they're just small community teachers, but they're
22:34
just as interested and they brought up like Memphis and May
22:36
videos and stuff from had the kids watching.
22:39
It was pretty neat. A lot of them didn't really,
22:42
they could have took it or leave it.
22:43
There's a couple and that asked got you the side and asked a lot
22:47
of questions, which if you can help out, get one kid addressed
22:51
and that's pretty cool. That's definitely true.
22:56
And for those who don't know, probably they don't know, but I
22:59
met Jay at American Royal this year when I went out there and
23:05
was walking around. So that's how I got introduced
23:08
to him. And I hear about you all the
23:10
time, everywhere. So it was good to meet y'all and
23:16
have you all today because everywhere, everywhere.
23:20
So it was an honor because I like yeah, it's that's means a
23:25
lot because in order to hear your name everywhere, that mean
23:30
your name means something. There's quality behind that name
23:33
and y'all have a reputation for your outstanding service as well
23:38
as the meat. So y'all out there with the
23:41
people, talking to the people that's purchasing products from
23:46
y'all and that FaceTime means a lot to the people.
23:48
That means y'all care and about anything that's going on and
23:53
they're using your product. And then on top of that it shows
23:57
by the results y'all have which are products.
24:01
Yeah, this year was pretty awesome, the results and but
24:04
yeah, going back to the, it does mean it means a lot to me to go
24:07
out there. Sometimes you get some feedback
24:09
you don't want to hear, but for the most part I enjoy.
24:12
I love it. I love going to the comps.
24:14
I love making a lot of people. I do little cooking like
24:18
backyard. Me and Kyle, actually my
24:19
brother-in-law, we do backyard, but I'd prefer to see other
24:22
people do good. And yeah, this American Royal
24:25
this year, man, it was. They showed out for us for sure.
24:28
I owe a couple people a hug. Definitely, people trust in
24:34
y'all product and they actually they shout y'all out all the
24:37
time and it I know that means a lot to y'all.
24:41
It's like they don't forget about y'all we need.
24:44
Now it's humbling for sure. And I think I, I did Chris
24:49
Shaffer class in last February and I saw all y'all stuff in the
24:52
case in the Collinsville BBQ supply and, and a couple of
24:57
people told me they had went out there and got some products.
25:00
I don't know if you have check and carry east from they've come
25:03
here in Georgia. So Yep, dad went and got some
25:06
and everybody else went out there and make their way to go
25:09
out there. Hey, I had to go to court.
25:11
He's for the class. I heard of Y'all because I like
25:15
I say, I don't I, I go walk around competitions.
25:18
I talk to people. Haven't started competing
25:20
because I have a young daughter, so I want to get her up in age
25:23
where I just venture out. But I do go walk around comps
25:26
and take classes just to meet people as well as fellowship
25:29
with people. Heard of Y'all everywhere.
25:31
That's how I know for sure that Y'all product is out there.
25:35
Yeah, it's pretty cool. All right, and what's up?
25:40
Have anybody requested a competition meet that some
25:44
unusual or anything from y'all it might be out of the ordinary.
25:50
I get a lot of unusual stuff, but I usually try to tackle it.
25:56
I usually I like a challenge. I like to prove that I can do
26:00
it. I get a lot of Texas guys that
26:03
want a Texas trim on a brisket, which I never even heard of and.
26:07
A couple. A little bit of homework and a
26:09
little bit of research and I figured it out.
26:11
And couple, I don't know, they said they liked it.
26:14
They said it was a good trim. Wes Garrett asked me to trim
26:17
chicken, which I don't usually do.
26:19
And that's one of the unusual things that's still an ongoing
26:23
joke between Wes and I. He was felt pretty bad because
26:27
he called me up and he's like, hey, can you trim chicken?
26:29
And of course I was like, yeah, I'll trim it for you.
26:31
I, we don't offer it, but I'll trim it for you.
26:34
And then he didn't realize it. And afterwards he found out that
26:37
I don't do that. And he felt really bad.
26:39
But it's an ongoing joke. Do I do a lot of baby backs from
26:44
Memphis and May trimming them up, which that was a new thing
26:47
to me. I've never we're we're Saint
26:49
Louis area, obviously Saint Louis style ribs everywhere.
26:53
We don't do a whole lot of baby backs.
26:55
And so doing that was for a lot of teams was pretty unique.
26:59
Trimming them knuckles down and they want them like 2 and three
27:03
quarter inch wide and all that stuff, which I do it.
27:06
A lot of guys come to me are messaging me or whatever and
27:09
say, hey, can you get this and get that?
27:11
And that's been my like niche, I guess.
27:15
I've tried to trying to find that unique item that not
27:21
everyone can get. And I don't know, I've always
27:25
tried to pride myself in getting that for that guy.
27:27
And sometimes it comes through, sometimes I don't.
27:29
But I try my best. So what's the so you say people
27:33
bring animals in to get taken care of?
27:36
What's the strange animal that somebody brought in there?
27:38
Is anything? We've killed elk, we've killed
27:42
Buffalo for bison, we've killed lambs, goats, pot bellied pigs.
27:49
Probably the winner, I'd say. The pot bellied pig.
27:51
Yeah, actually an actual pet of a person.
27:55
The pot bellied pig. Yeah.
28:01
I used to work on the kill floor when I first started.
28:04
I don't anymore, so I don't miss that part of the job.
28:07
So they they can have that. Bison, who I know that's a lot
28:13
of. Weird.
28:13
They're they're mean animal and they get it somewhere where they
28:16
don't want to be. Wow.
28:19
We actually at our old place, we quit doing it because it was so
28:22
dangerous and they would just tear up everything.
28:25
But now we're is. There a lot of meat on those
28:29
that you can use or. Not really.
28:31
They're all hair and front shoulders.
28:35
They're they look huge, but they're really not that like
28:38
once they're skin and all that stuff, they don't yield out very
28:42
well. But there's definitely people
28:43
that like it. It's a healthy lean meat.
28:47
It's not really for me, but it's a lot of people like it.
28:52
Yeah, we have that, the Montana Grill, the Ted Turner on and
28:56
they have a couple of them down there to serve the bison.
28:59
I guess it's mainly the bison in there.
29:02
But yes, it's strange. How does the elk taste?
29:08
Have you tried that? Yeah, it's good.
29:10
It's a little richer or it's a little better than like a deer
29:12
venicence or not as gamier, not as gamey.
29:16
It's good. We get a lot of people bringing
29:19
not that they bring in live bear, but people that kill bear
29:22
like a a hunting somewhere will will process that.
29:27
We process ducks and geese. We process pretty much any
29:30
animal that is legal to hunt or legal to bring hen.
29:33
We process, I don't know, probably trying to think the
29:37
most unique animal that we've persons brought.
29:41
We get a lot of like mule deer, we get a lot of antelope, a lot
29:44
of African deer or African meat that come back and stuff like
29:48
that. Moose, oh man, I don't know.
29:51
We pretty much if it's legal to hunt, we'll do it.
29:55
Yeah, I got some skill because you just, you know, every person
29:58
know how to process all that. It's pretty cool seeing a lot of
30:03
them guys will come back from like their hunting trips and
30:05
they'll have all the trophies and stuff, elk and all that
30:08
stuff in the back of their truck.
30:09
It's pretty neat to see all the unique animals and bear hides
30:15
and all that stuff. It's been pretty, pretty cool.
30:18
See all stuff. Yeah, not a bleed.
30:20
If you're into that some some people.
30:23
I've been passed out on the floor.
30:26
Oh wow. Let's talk about the sausage.
30:28
How many different sausages do y'all have?
30:31
Oh man, I don't even know we got when it comes like brats.
30:38
I think we got 30 plus different flavors of brats.
30:42
We do everything from salami, jalapeno cheese, salami cheese.
30:48
We make our own Bologna and make our own hot dogs and make our
30:50
own. I mean it.
30:54
Pretty much anything you can find at any grocery store.
30:58
We make like ourselves in the house trying to think.
31:01
When we make head cheese, which is like liver sausage, like
31:05
blood sausage we make. We smoke our own hams, we smoke
31:09
our own bacons. We do it all from every animal,
31:15
hogs of beef to all from start to finish.
31:19
We do pretty much anything we can.
31:22
Anything we can save and make money on, we'll do it.
31:26
That's right. There's a part for every person
31:29
out there. Exactly, exactly.
31:32
So what someone frowns upon you never know what people grew up
31:35
in the country so. That's right.
31:38
Eat more than other people. There's customers that come in
31:41
and ask for stuff and they teach me like, what in the world you
31:44
gonna do with that? And they tell me how they're
31:46
gonna cook it and how it sounds amazing.
31:47
I'm just like, I've never even heard of that stuff.
31:49
Is that? It's pretty cool to see
31:51
everyone's heritage come out. I guess that's what it is, what
31:54
their grandparents or they're left behind and that's how they
31:57
made it and that's what's pretty cool.
32:00
Yeah, yeah, I mean it. Yeah.
32:02
There's some people to eat chicken feet and I'm like, how
32:04
do you do that? But.
32:06
Yeah, we actually ordering chicken feet for people.
32:10
Chicken paws, Yeah. I don't.
32:14
You do. I ate big feet so.
32:16
I never had chillings. Now you can't eat.
32:20
Everybody's jealous. You got a special place.
32:24
No, it's just family members that made it.
32:27
You can't trust everybody. No, you got to be somebody, you
32:32
know? All right, That's all the
32:35
question I have. I got 2 quick games I'm going to
32:37
run through with you. You know how in college
32:39
basketball they got a tournament bracket?
32:40
So I did a tournament bracket with 16 meats that you cook on
32:43
the grill and I'm a read the match up and just tell me which
32:46
one you prefer to eat and we'll see which one the winner.
32:49
First matchup, smoked Bologna versus hamburger.
32:53
Hamburger. All right.
32:56
Next matchup Sausage versus pork chops.
33:00
Sausage. OK.
33:03
Next matchup is brisket versus hot dog.
33:07
Brisket. All right, pork belly versus
33:11
smoked ham. Pork belly.
33:16
OK, Next match up, beef ribs versus smoked Turkey.
33:22
Beef ribs. OK, next match up, BBQ shrimp
33:28
versus lamb. Shrimp.
33:32
All right, burnt ends versus pork ribs.
33:37
Like beef burnt ends. Like.
33:40
Brisket point briskets who? Man I gotta go with burn ends.
33:47
OK, next match up is steak versus smoked chicken.
33:52
Steak. Alright, next round is hamburger
33:56
versus sausage. Hamburger.
34:00
You can tell I'm a red meat guy. Can't.
34:02
Right brisket versus pork belly. Brisket next match up, beef ribs
34:08
versus shrimp. If you're talking like the plate
34:11
ribs, Dino bones, I'm going with that.
34:14
Is that what you're talking about?
34:15
Yes. Alright.
34:17
Alright, burn insurance versus steak.
34:21
Oh man, oh boy, I gotta go with steak.
34:27
That's where my heart is. Alright.
34:30
And final four, hamburger versus brisket.
34:33
Brisket. And steak versus beef ribs.
34:40
Steak. All right, Final brisket versus
34:45
steak man. Who's cooking the brisket?
34:50
Can I pick a? Can I pick a cook?
34:53
Yeah. Man, I got Bill Hein, Jordan
34:57
Kirkpatrick. Tim.
35:00
Shear. Oh shit, I got to go with steak.
35:05
All right, as they get the winner, may I ask you the
35:08
question because you even seen a lot of cop cooks.
35:10
If you had to pick you and three other pit masters to cook a cop,
35:14
what 3 are you picking and what meat are they cooking?
35:19
Put you on the spot. I ain't going to cook any.
35:23
I'm going to be the PR guy all. Right, pick 4, then four and
35:26
pick they go good. You know, I actually thought
35:30
about this not too long ago. I've seen this before.
35:33
I got to go with Jason Halterman, the champion of the
35:36
brisket. He's going to cook brisket.
35:39
Jordan Patrick's going to cook pork, Bill Hines going to cook
35:45
ribs, and Tim Shears going to cook chicken.
35:46
All. Right.
35:48
I'm just going to hang out, all right?
35:51
That's a good team. All right.
35:53
Are you a sports fan? I am.
35:55
All right, next matchup is a 16 team tournament of 16 person
36:00
tournament of the greatest athletes of all time.
36:04
There's only one right answer, but we get there.
36:08
All right, matchup #1 Michael Phelps versus Simone Biles.
36:13
Oh man, I think you got to go, Phelps, just with the gold
36:15
medals. All right.
36:18
And Muhammad Ali? Lionel Messi.
36:23
I got Muhammad Ali's autograph. I'm going with him.
36:26
All right. Tom Brady.
36:28
Roger Federer. And I gotta go with the Roger
36:33
Federer. I'm not a Tom Brady.
36:35
He is a go, I will say, but he beat the Rams.
36:37
I don't like him. Vote hell way.
36:43
All right, Barry Bonds versus LeBron.
36:48
LeBron, he's a good dude. Take your word for it, all
36:52
right? Usain Bolt versus Tiger Woods.
36:56
Now I'm gonna go against the good dude Tiger Woods all.
36:59
Right. Kobe Bryant versus Cristiano
37:02
Ronaldo, man. These are some good matchups.
37:08
Guy goes Kobe all. Right.
37:12
Wayne Gretzky, Dale Earnhardt, senior.
37:17
Wayne Gretzky. All right.
37:22
And last matchup, Michael Jordan versus Serena Williams.
37:26
MJ. OK.
37:28
It's round Feltz versus Ali. Ali.
37:33
All right, Federer versus LeBron.
37:37
Oh man, Federer, get out of here, little bomb.
37:43
All right. Tiger versus Kobe, good match up
37:46
there. Oh man, Kobe.
37:53
Rescue versus Jordan. Jordan.
37:57
All right, all right. Final four I'll leave versus
38:00
Federer. Ollie.
38:05
All right. And Kobe versus Jordan.
38:08
Man, Jordan for sure, but tough ones.
38:13
All right, I'll leave versus Jordan in the Finals.
38:17
Jordan, he's the man. Of course, like I said, it's
38:20
only one correct? It's just fun to get, yeah.
38:24
They're starting to wonder if you're going to put his name in
38:26
there. I was like what the hell?
38:27
Yeah, he's Yeah, I. Grew up in the Bulls area.
38:30
Yeah, I did too. So I'll be 50 next year.
38:34
So I like if y'all would have watched it back then, y'all
38:37
wouldn't even. And back then I used to love
38:39
Utah, Carl, Carl Malone and Stockton.
38:42
I used to hate you, man, but it broke my heart numerous times.
38:46
All right, your therapy session is over and if you had anything
38:50
to promote you welcome to do that now.
38:53
Yeah, February 21st, I believe. We have a BBQ class at Courtney
38:59
meets Sterling Smith out of Luton Booty and Mike Johnson,
39:03
who is owner of Sugar Fire, Well Drawn Blank, Sugar Fire, High
39:08
Point, and he's got a chicken joint too.
39:10
I forget the name of that, but I should know.
39:13
But yeah, they're put on a class at our place.
39:15
I'm looking really looking for that, seeing them to do their
39:19
thing together. Sterling's going to do like the
39:21
competition side and Mike's going to do like the culinary
39:23
like chef side. So it's going to be a cool
39:27
class. I think it's very unique to have
39:29
two of them calibers in one spot.
39:31
They want to sign up. They can find reach out to me or
39:35
call Courtney Meats and ask for me.
39:36
But other than that, just going to enjoy another one day off and
39:42
back to work. Yeah, we got New Year's Day off
39:49
and the rest of the day I'm working.
39:50
So yeah, back to the ground. But I definitely appreciate you
39:56
coming on and giving some of your time and sharing the story
39:59
and stuff like that and. Yeah, thanks for having.
40:02
Me, I definitely look forward to meeting you in the future and
40:05
now since I know you even more, I'll look for you and look for
40:10
me if you see me once I meet you Friends Life.
40:16
Sounds good. Buddy, appreciate it, Appreciate
40:19
you enjoy your day. No problem.
40:21
I built something onto my podcast that every BBQ brand
40:24
should be a part of. It's called the BBQ Therapy
40:27
Smoke showdown bracket 16 meats you cook on the grill go head to
40:31
head and every guest picks their winner.
40:34
It's one of the most engaging parts of the show.
40:37
Every guest plays and every listener loves it because No2
40:41
brackets are the same. Now I'm opening it up for a
40:44
presenting sponsor, meaning your brand becomes part of the
40:47
segment. Every single show.
40:50
This isn't just an ad. This becomes part of the show.
40:54
And if you're interested, reach out to Tavis Bryant at
40:57
barbecuetherapypodcast@gmail.com. Thank you.
41:01
Thank you for joining us for another therapy session.
41:05
And remember, like, follow and subscribe to help the BBQ
41:08
Therapy community and also visit our website at
41:11
www.barbecuetherapypodcast.com.