Latest / BBQ Therapy / Luke Darnell- Old Virginia Smoke | The Mayor of BBQ

Transcript

Luke Darnell- Old Virginia Smoke | The Mayor of BBQ · BBQ Therapy

• 0:00
  Best palate in BBQ? Hands down best palate in BBQ.
• 0:05
  He watching him finish a meat is like watching a really
• 0:11
  disheveled Rembrandt. It really it's messy and shits
• 0:15
  all over the place, but the flavor on the at the end is
• 0:18
  going to be fantastic. Yeah, and.
• 0:22
  Fantastic he's he gave me one of my best lessons in BBQ ever and
• 0:26
  I'll never forget it. And he gets best rib I ever had,
• 0:30
  but I thought that 5 minutes after I ate it.
• 0:33
  You gotta smack him in the face right now.
• 0:36
  Wow. And he's right.
• 0:39
  He's right. That was one of the best lessons
• 0:40
  I've ever got. Bango ham BBQ, Bango Ham BBQ.
• 0:45
  Bango Ham BBQ. Bango Ham BBQ BBQ.
• 0:50
  Ever notice how the sound of sizzling meat and the smell of
• 0:53
  smoke can silence the noise of the world?
• 0:55
  Now that's BBQ therapy. If the fire moves you, like
• 1:00
  subscribe, share and help spread the message because growth, like
• 1:04
  good BBQ, takes time and patience.
• 1:07
  Welcome to your therapy session. Welcome to the BBQ Therapy
• 1:12
  podcast. My name is Tavis Bryant and
• 1:15
  today's guest is a true heavyweight in the world of
• 1:17
  competitive BBQ. Mr. Luke Darnell, the fire
• 1:21
  behind Old Virginia Smoke with titles like the 2016 World Food
• 1:26
  BBQ Championship and the 2021 American Royal Chicken Champion.
• 1:31
  With over 41 GCS and RGCS and one of the best chicken cooks in
• 1:37
  KCBS history, Lucas a Force alongside his wife Kim Lucas
• 1:42
  built not just a winning team but a brand that fuses world
• 1:45
  class food with relentless fun. Let's get into the fire with Mr.
• 1:50
  Luke Darnell. Welcome to the show.
• 1:51
  I got one rule. Make yourself home.
• 1:53
  I have no sponsors, so you can speak freely because I ain't
• 1:56
  getting cut off. Said thanks for having me man,
• 2:00
  I'm sorry it's taking so long to get on here.
• 2:02
  We've had some real life stuff but had the pleasure of having
• 2:05
  you in my BBQ class this winter and I've been very excited to do
• 2:09
  this. I enjoyed your class and all the
• 2:12
  classes I took. Right after that I took the
• 2:14
  Chris Shaffer class. His class was good.
• 2:16
  So all y'all got a good product that y'all offering.
• 2:19
  So people that's out there being stubborn, they need to go see
• 2:22
  how it's actually done before they go out there and just waste
• 2:26
  money trying to be stubborn and stuff like that.
• 2:28
  I was trying to talk to somebody yesterday that that class is
• 2:32
  very helpful. And don't worry about the money
• 2:35
  because you're going to waste it competing anyway.
• 2:38
  So go learn from some of the best.
• 2:42
  It's one of those things, Tavis, where back in the day when I
• 2:45
  started back in 2012, 2013, there was BBQ classes, but they
• 2:51
  were few and far between. And the only way you really
• 2:55
  learned was going to a contest and keeping your mouth shut.
• 2:58
  And listen, the amount of knowledge that's available to
• 3:01
  new cooks today is it's exceptional and it's actually
• 3:05
  probably like drinking from a firehose.
• 3:08
  There's so much out there. And but it offers new people a
• 3:15
  chance at early success that'll keep them engaged in the hobby.
• 3:18
  And so I love supporting that. I love being a part of that and
• 3:23
  I love seeing the people that I teach do well.
• 3:26
  That's a big deal for me. Yeah, you can tell when people
• 3:29
  when it's a money grab versus somebody that actually wants to
• 3:32
  see you succeed because you take the time, remember your name,
• 3:36
  you know, it makes you feel like you're welcome there.
• 3:39
  And that's how I felt when I went to your class versus some
• 3:41
  of the other ones where you just throw the stuff to you.
• 3:44
  And all right, y'all have a good hey would you like to buy my
• 3:47
  stuff here and selling it right after the class?
• 3:53
  I'm going to say this and it's not a, it's not a brag, nor am I
• 3:57
  taking credit, but your class was pretty small when you guys
• 4:01
  came. But the people that took that
• 4:04
  class, the success that they've had this year, it's been
• 4:08
  amazing. And I'm not saying that to in
• 4:14
  any way, shape or form take credit because at the end of the
• 4:17
  day, the number one thing is I teach is that you have to cook
• 4:20
  it. And I'm going to do a big shout
• 4:23
  out to Renee. She has worked her butt off and
• 4:26
  is really just killing it. No K killing it.
• 4:30
  And it's it's, it brings joy to my heart for that.
• 4:33
  That is, I think, yes, I charge for classes, but at the same
• 4:38
  time, I feel like it's a way of giving back and seeing people
• 4:41
  thrive that makes me happy. Yeah.
• 4:44
  Even when they start, even when they start kicking my ass, I'm
• 4:46
  good. Definitely just and when it
• 4:51
  comes to me, it expanded my knowledge because I'm going to
• 4:55
  take advantage of it when I start cooking, but also it helps
• 4:57
  me in this Ave. here because it helps me more aware of what I'm
• 5:02
  talking about and have a knowledge of.
• 5:03
  OK, I've seen it for myself, so I'm not just talking.
• 5:07
  I've seen it from numerous people that has results.
• 5:11
  Your labor class has been champion, has boost what I've
• 5:14
  done and not have me on here just talking.
• 5:17
  But I've done the homework and did the classes and I know what
• 5:21
  I'm talking about. I don't know everything, that's
• 5:23
  why I bring y'all on, but I know enough to make it through these
• 5:28
  conversations. And that's another important
• 5:32
  thing that you bring up though, is you're never done learning,
• 5:37
  especially something as great as what we do, competition BBQ.
• 5:42
  There's 10 million ways to do it.
• 5:43
  And I've been learning things. I've been learning a lot this
• 5:48
  year, man A ton. So definitely.
• 5:53
  All right, let's rewind. Let's take it back to
• 5:55
  Morgantown, WV. What was the BBQ scene growing
• 5:59
  up and what were the traditions in your family growing up with
• 6:02
  BBQ, if any? Mostly it was it started with my
• 6:09
  dad, my whole, all my mom's side of the family would get together
• 6:12
  every Saturday and everybody would bring their own steaks and
• 6:17
  my dad would cook the steaks on the grill.
• 6:20
  He knew how each person liked their steaks.
• 6:23
  And we did that steak, potatoes, vegetable every Saturday, whole
• 6:27
  family. As I started to get into my
• 6:30
  teenager years I'd help and then my dad had a Co worker from
• 6:35
  Tonga, his name is Pat May, was an amateur boxer.
• 6:38
  He worked at the power station with my dad and every year Pat
• 6:44
  would fight in the tough man contest, which was an amateur
• 6:48
  boxing tournament and my dad was his corner man.
• 6:52
  So after that tournament was over they would cook a hog in
• 6:57
  the ground, oh wow, island style.
• 7:00
  So we would dig a hole, start a fire, put the limestone in the
• 7:04
  bottom of the hole, get it hot, line it with tree branches,
• 7:08
  chicken wire on top. Then we'd lower a pig in there,
• 7:12
  roast potatoes, corn, everything.
• 7:16
  Cover that with foil, cover that with cardboard, then bury it and
• 7:20
  let it go for about 8 to 10 hours.
• 7:23
  Wow. Yeah, I was serious.
• 7:24
  Yeah, we would do it every year. And it was our job as kids to
• 7:30
  walk around with a shovel and make sure there was no smoke
• 7:32
  coming on the ground. We didn't know that it was that
• 7:39
  was work. We thought it was a game, but it
• 7:41
  was really just an excuse for a guy to bring beer.
• 7:44
  And that really started my love of barbecue.
• 7:47
  And in the family, there's not a lot of BBQ.
• 7:52
  I mean if you count West Virginia as part of Virginia
• 7:55
  back in the old days, then sure, you can trace the earliest roots
• 7:59
  of BBQ to Virginia. Jamestown settlement.
• 8:02
  There's references in public notices for town hall meetings
• 8:07
  that involve barbacoa or the way that they learn how to cook meat
• 8:11
  over an open fire from Native Americans.
• 8:14
  All these people that say they started BBQ, that's not true,
• 8:16
  started there. You go and is there a dramatic
• 8:21
  difference in the taste when it's cooked in the ground versus
• 8:24
  being cooked? It is, man, and I don't know how
• 8:27
  to explain. I mean, the flavor, I can taste
• 8:30
  it sitting here just thinking about it.
• 8:32
  It's probably what we would consider overly smoky, but it
• 8:38
  just has this anxiousness that you can't really get any other
• 8:41
  way than that. We were going to try and do it
• 8:44
  this fall. My dad passed in February and
• 8:48
  we're having a celebration of life in a couple of weeks, but
• 8:51
  with everything going on, we're not going to be able to do it.
• 8:52
  But I think next summer we're going to try and dig a hole and
• 8:57
  cook it old school South and see how that goes.
• 9:00
  That's not a bad idea for a class.
• 9:02
  Also people don't want to. I got an idea, but you could do
• 9:06
  like AI don't want to give it out to somebody to steal it.
• 9:09
  But you could do like a meat class because I ain't going to
• 9:13
  lie, I've never cooked the steak and I would love to learn how to
• 9:15
  cook a steak because I never tried it.
• 9:18
  So I would love to cook a steak and I love pork chops.
• 9:21
  I know how to cook a pork chop, but you might have different
• 9:23
  ways to do that. But you could do like maybe a
• 9:25
  all meat class where not BBQ stuff, but just different meats
• 9:30
  and stuff like the pig and all that would be a great class.
• 9:33
  I would love to go to. I don't know about everybody
• 9:35
  else, but you can kick it around there and figure it out just
• 9:39
  like your other classes. Already made a note buddy.
• 9:43
  Yeah, I would love to come out there two days and just learn
• 9:46
  how to do stuff like that. Remember when you come up, come
• 9:50
  up with it. I got you.
• 9:51
  I got. You all right?
• 9:55
  And do you remember the first time you grilled something by
• 9:57
  yourself? How did it come out?
• 10:01
  Oh gosh, no, I don't. In high school, though, I did.
• 10:07
  Somebody brought this up the other day.
• 10:08
  We used to have, my grandmother had this remote house outside of
• 10:12
  Morgantown, and we would have Saturday night barbecues where
• 10:17
  we'd fire up the grill and make hamburgers and hot dogs and
• 10:19
  stuff and just a bunch of high school kids just hanging out.
• 10:23
  Parents would be there, my parents would be there.
• 10:25
  But that's really when I started, I guess, grilling in
• 10:28
  front of people and entertaining.
• 10:30
  That goes all the way back to high school.
• 10:32
  Still my favorite thing to cook ever, the hamburger.
• 10:35
  I love hamburgers. I've struggled with YouTube
• 10:38
  content and I think I'm going to start making burgers, man.
• 10:42
  That's because I'm going to enjoy them and it's something I
• 10:44
  like and I go in spurts with YouTube and it's not good.
• 10:49
  But yeah, it's still one of my favorite things to do and I'm
• 10:52
  trying to encourage contest to do more Friday night burger
• 10:56
  contest. I think it would be fun.
• 10:58
  And yeah, just see where it goes, yeah.
• 11:01
  That's not a bad idea for you to just do different hamburgers,
• 11:04
  different type of hamburgers. Just based on what I see on
• 11:08
  YouTube, it's it's the stuff that doesn't make sense, the
• 11:11
  stuff that blows up, but. Can we talk about that for a
• 11:16
  minute? Go for it.
• 11:17
  And I've talked to so many people and they're like, this is
• 11:21
  what's hot, you need to make this.
• 11:23
  And I'm like, I'm not going to cook something just because it's
• 11:30
  popular at the time or I don't. And some of that shit I don't
• 11:35
  want to make. It doesn't sound good.
• 11:37
  It's just shock value. And I don't want to teach people
• 11:40
  how to do something like that. I want to teach them real world
• 11:42
  stuff on how to cook. And it's one of the things that
• 11:45
  I love about Malcolm Reed's channel.
• 11:47
  He's not generally trying to do anything nuts, he's just trying
• 11:51
  to show you how to do it. And I think that's good.
• 11:54
  I think there needs to be more of that.
• 11:55
  Exactly because this past summer we've seen 80 million ways how
• 12:00
  to do party Rios and it's like. When I saw a party rib, I was
• 12:07
  like, what are we doing? And somebody might hear this and
• 12:11
  get mad at me because they did a party rib video and I don't.
• 12:14
  I'm sorry. You know what I'm never going to
• 12:17
  make in my life? Party ribs.
• 12:21
  They're gonna do it. I just.
• 12:23
  I got a rack of ribs that I'm gonna make today for the Steeler
• 12:25
  game, and I'll tell you exactly how I'm gonna do it.
• 12:29
  I take salt and pepper more, rub it.
• 12:33
  I'm gonna throw to the trigger so I don't have to watch it.
• 12:35
  I'm gonna wrap it with butter and I'm gonna slice them up and
• 12:39
  eat them. That's the best way to have
• 12:42
  ribs. And at the party.
• 12:46
  I should you know what I should do for my YouTube channel is
• 12:48
  just make the party rib video but make it like a parody of a
• 12:51
  party rib video. Have a disco ball going and
• 12:54
  shit. Exactly.
• 12:57
  It's a good idea. We got too many ideas we're
• 12:59
  kicking around here. I'm going to have an entire
• 13:02
  notebook full of ideas, Davis. I don't know what to do.
• 13:04
  It's. Good to kick it off somebody.
• 13:07
  All right, let's go to your wife.
• 13:08
  And when did you meet Kim and was she all in when you started
• 13:12
  the BBQ stuff? I met him in October of 1999.
• 13:22
  She and her sister came to Morgantown for a Virginia Tech
• 13:25
  West Virginia football game. And they came with two other
• 13:30
  friends and they lived in Northern Virginia and they came
• 13:33
  to the game and the other two were mostly wanting to just
• 13:40
  party and hang out at the fraternity house that they were
• 13:42
  associated with. And I noticed him from the
• 13:46
  beginning and they were forced to go to the frat house on
• 13:50
  Friday night and they called me and said can you come get us
• 13:53
  because we don't want to be here.
• 13:56
  Sure. So I went and got him, took him
• 14:00
  out to the bar that I worked at. We danced all night, did shots
• 14:03
  all night, took him to my parents tailgate the next day,
• 14:07
  let them sit in the student section with us, protected them
• 14:11
  because it was a violent atmosphere.
• 14:13
  It was a year Michael Vick ran down the sideline at the end of
• 14:16
  the game. They got down the 25, kicked the
• 14:17
  field goal and beat us. And I just remember, and four
• 14:20
  months later I moved to Northern Virginia and yeah, that's that's
• 14:27
  how that went. And I didn't really start
• 14:30
  cooking barbecue by myself until after we were married.
• 14:36
  And we would cook for football Sundays and stuff.
• 14:40
  And then one day she came home from work and she's one of my Co
• 14:44
  workers. Husband's has a BBQ team.
• 14:47
  They're looking for somebody. I'm like BBQ team.
• 14:51
  What's a BBQ team? I looked it up and at that point
• 14:54
  I only had electric smokers because I didn't want to deal
• 14:57
  with all the mess and and they're like charcoal or what
• 15:00
  only. So I was like, I guess better
• 15:02
  learn this. So I went and bought a Weber
• 15:04
  Smoky Mountain. I had to go interview to be on
• 15:07
  the team and yeah, the guy was like, what do you what kind of
• 15:11
  smoker you have? And I was like, what's out in
• 15:12
  the car? I had it in the car.
• 15:14
  That's I got it today and took him out there and showed it to
• 15:18
  him and he's here on the team. So why?
• 15:22
  Because that's the best smoker we have.
• 15:24
  We did that for two years and and we weren't very good.
• 15:30
  Who's the team name? Oh, boy.
• 15:33
  Smoke dreams. Yeah, but we wouldn't change.
• 15:42
  We wouldn't. And I get it.
• 15:45
  The guy that was in charge was set in his ways.
• 15:47
  Kirk, who I'll forever be grateful to.
• 15:50
  But he was from Kansas City, made his own rubs and sauces,
• 15:53
  and that's what he wanted to do. And that's fine.
• 15:54
  But finally, I remember we were in Hedgesville, WV, It was porn
• 16:01
  and we had the word loading up three cars full of shit.
• 16:06
  We finished on 3rd of the field again.
• 16:08
  And Tuffy Stone won that contest.
• 16:12
  And I remember he was like next year and I said there isn't the
• 16:15
  next year. Like I'm done.
• 16:16
  And we keep doing this. We're not doing well.
• 16:22
  I can't do. I'm not built that way.
• 16:25
  I can't keep losing. If we're not going to change,
• 16:27
  then I'm not going to do it. Came back home and Kim and my
• 16:31
  friend Leanne pulled me aside. They're like, look, we want you
• 16:35
  to do this on your own and we want to be on the team.
• 16:39
  So that's how Old Virginia spoke.
• 16:40
  Got their start. OK, OK.
• 16:43
  And you spent two decades working for trade association.
• 16:46
  I guess you can explain what that is and what made you.
• 16:50
  Yeah, I've spent. Gosh, 22 years working for trade
• 16:55
  associations, which are basically lobbyist groups in DC.
• 16:59
  The majority of that was spent with the frozen food industry.
• 17:03
  And then the last half of my career was spent with the entire
• 17:06
  grocery industry. And I got to see a lot of the
• 17:10
  country, a bunch of different places.
• 17:13
  Great experience. Had a differencing of opinion
• 17:17
  with my supervisor at the end. And yeah, that was November of
• 17:25
  2019 and we decided to start a catering company in the in
• 17:30
  January 2020, which is not the best time in the world to start
• 17:34
  a catering company. Yeah.
• 17:36
  And just like everybody in that March, we lost all of our
• 17:40
  business for the year in two weeks because of COVID.
• 17:43
  And so we decided to do home meal delivery and that's what we
• 17:50
  did. We would deliver meals five days
• 17:52
  a week to people in the neighborhood or they wanted
• 17:56
  something different. No restaurants were open, so we
• 17:59
  did contactless delivery and payment.
• 18:01
  And a lot of people told us we were too dumb to fail, which I
• 18:05
  agree with. But yeah, so that's how the
• 18:09
  business side of this got started.
• 18:10
  So how do you come up with name over Virginia Smoke?
• 18:14
  Now that goes back to what we were talking about earlier when
• 18:19
  before 1863, when West Virginia was a part of Virginia and
• 18:22
  that's where BBQ started. I'm originally from West
• 18:26
  Virginia. I live in Virginia.
• 18:29
  So I, my brother who's a genius, we were talking about it one day
• 18:33
  and I was like, I want to combine the two states back
• 18:38
  because they're both a part of me.
• 18:39
  And we came up with the name Old Virginia Swift.
• 18:43
  So yeah, how it started. And we had the cartoon pig logo
• 18:50
  for a while. Then one day I get this new
• 18:52
  logo, the one we still use. My brother said I hate cartoon
• 18:55
  pigs. You'll never use a cartoon pig
• 18:57
  again. Hey, that's how we got our logo
• 19:02
  A. Lot of he doesn't.
• 19:04
  Necessarily, it's not a creative process with my brother.
• 19:06
  He more tells you what you're going to do, so it's good.
• 19:12
  All right. And as far as when you win the
• 19:14
  catering and stuff like that, did you get a mentor or did you
• 19:18
  just had to trial and error or? Oh no, I have so many mentors in
• 19:24
  the business side of this. Number one being Aaron Worth
• 19:27
  from Smokey D's. He is as good as he is in
• 19:32
  competition BBQ. He is way better at helping
• 19:36
  businesses get started, helping people optimize their process
• 19:41
  and just as just gives. He could charge an arm and a leg
• 19:47
  for his consulting services to as many people as he's helped
• 19:51
  and he doesn't. He gives it because he loves
• 19:54
  barbecue and he gives it back and it truly is like, I wouldn't
• 19:59
  be around if it wasn't for him. The same could be said for Brad.
• 20:03
  Brad Lininger from Getting Based.
• 20:05
  It also been a huge help in that regard.
• 20:07
  Chris Shaffer. Chris let me come and spend the
• 20:09
  day at the restaurant and see what was going.
• 20:12
  Darren has to just great mentors and they helped me avoid a lot
• 20:16
  of mistakes that I could have gotten sidelined by.
• 20:20
  Yeah. And underrated podcast is Darren
• 20:23
  Words podcast because he gives a lot of good information on there
• 20:27
  for folks that food, drugs or restaurants and stuff like that.
• 20:31
  Oh, it's great. And you got to deal with Randy.
• 20:35
  But Randy, there's another one. He knows so much about catering
• 20:39
  and just listen to those guys talk.
• 20:41
  And Joe Pierce, I'd be remiss if I left off Joe too.
• 20:44
  Joe showed me his entire operation probably 7 times and
• 20:49
  it's just brilliant how those guys operate.
• 20:51
  Exactly and willing to share and help you out which is excellent.
• 20:56
  So when you earlier I guess you around you said you started 14
• 21:03
  and so when you first started, what did you when you started
• 21:07
  competing, what did you were cooking on at that time?
• 21:09
  Did you jump out with the Jambo or?
• 21:14
  No. Do you want me just to divest
• 21:16
  the entire history of cookers right now?
• 21:21
  So we started off with an old Bandara pit side firebox that
• 21:29
  then came over into a vertical chamber.
• 21:35
  This was gifted to us from my old team.
• 21:38
  We had that in the Smoky Mountain and we used to cart
• 21:42
  that. It was big and heavy.
• 21:44
  No control over the fire whatsoever.
• 21:47
  We sanded it, sandblasted it, painted it, painted it Ford
• 21:51
  blue, high temperature paint, put fire in it, paint.
• 21:55
  All melted off immediately like you watched it happen.
• 21:59
  He did that for one contest and then we bought another Smoky
• 22:04
  Mountain and part of it was paying attention to what was
• 22:07
  around. So we had the two Smoky
• 22:09
  Mountains and that's what we cooked on for a while our first
• 22:13
  and but around that time is when Three Eyes was killing it in our
• 22:19
  area. And so we switched to backwoods
• 22:23
  pretty soon after that. We had backwoods water cookers
• 22:27
  did really well on those for a few years.
• 22:29
  We spent a year on Humphreys Smokers as well, and then we
• 22:34
  went to, we were blessed enough the year that we won Chicken
• 22:39
  Team of the Year in 2017. We got to go to King of the
• 22:45
  Smokers out in California, and we had the backwoods and at 2:30
• 22:53
  in the morning, I was the only one outside cooking 25 best
• 22:57
  teams in the country, and I was the only one in the parking lot.
• 23:01
  Everybody else come out at 6:00, lit their Jambos or cans and
• 23:08
  moved on and then beat us. And I told Kim, I said we're
• 23:15
  doing something wrong or there's a different way to do this and
• 23:20
  there's a reason that these people are better than us.
• 23:25
  And so then soon after that, we switched to Jambo and I was
• 23:32
  happy enough to learn from Darren.
• 23:35
  And the first time we cooked on it in a contest, you're parked
• 23:37
  right next to me. Just do what I do.
• 23:40
  And that's how I learned to cook on a jambo and loved it, Love
• 23:45
  cooking on a jambo. And we did that for five years
• 23:51
  probably. We had the J3, we had the porch
• 23:54
  model on the trailer and but always in the back of my mind
• 23:58
  were these cans. They were always there and we
• 24:02
  made the decision this past winter.
• 24:04
  That's what we were going to cook on.
• 24:06
  So now we're full can all the way.
• 24:10
  Yep, and you were there around the beginning of the CAN
• 24:13
  revolution. How did they when you first saw
• 24:16
  them? Gateway Drums, right, 2016.
• 24:22
  We went to the KCBS banquet and we took the shake and bake and
• 24:27
  get in basic class. That was in Kansas City.
• 24:30
  And I remember eating that canned rib for the first time
• 24:33
  and being like, Oh my God. In hindsight, that should have
• 24:37
  been the moment where I switched it.
• 24:40
  But I was enchanted by the and I don't regret it.
• 24:43
  I was enchanted by the romantic notion of the stick burner and
• 24:46
  the offset and throwing sticks, and I'm glad I know how to do
• 24:49
  that. But yeah, we've cooked on
• 24:51
  everything, man. That is one of my things that
• 24:55
  I'm happiest about is if you go back through our GCS, we've won
• 24:58
  on all those pits. Oh, wow.
• 25:00
  So that, that's pretty cool. OK, OK, that's good.
• 25:04
  And did when you said did you have the pop up tent when you
• 25:09
  first started and stuff like that or?
• 25:11
  Oh man. So much stuff and memories keep
• 25:17
  popping up now on Facebook about they showed our old set up and
• 25:21
  this is there anything you didn't bring, like just
• 25:26
  truckloads of stuff just now I can fit everything comfortably
• 25:33
  into my truck for one contest. If we don't take the trailer.
• 25:36
  It's easy, man. Yeah, we it's still I'll tell
• 25:39
  you Tavis, my favorite way to cook is under a pop up.
• 25:43
  I I love it. I love being out there being
• 25:46
  able to talk to everybody walking by.
• 25:47
  I love as long as it's not pouring rain or stupid hot.
• 25:52
  I just love being outside and cooking.
• 25:54
  I think it's fun. Oh yeah, I got mine sitting
• 25:56
  right over to the side and ready to go whenever my tap got the
• 26:00
  logo on there and everything. There you go.
• 26:04
  All right, and other than Tim and M class, where any other
• 26:07
  classes? Do you regularly take classes
• 26:09
  back then or? My first class ever was from
• 26:13
  Chris Hart with IQ. Chris won the Jack twice I
• 26:19
  think, written a couple cookbooks, an amazing cook out
• 26:23
  of the Boston and Mark Gibbs from Checkered flag 500.
• 26:30
  He had a class seat for, for Chris's class and he couldn't go
• 26:35
  and he called me and he's, look, I'll sell you this seat for $200
• 26:40
  if you can get up to Boston next weekend.
• 26:44
  I didn't even know this existed. Dude.
• 26:46
  I was like, OK, so I used airline miles to get a flight
• 26:51
  up, got a cheap hotel room and went and took that class.
• 26:57
  And it blew me away the little details and stuff that I've what
• 27:02
  we weren't doing we've and at that point we were, we were
• 27:05
  still inside a 10 contest, but we were starting to see some
• 27:08
  success And but just man, just the little things.
• 27:15
  And that next weekend we cook that program at a contest and I
• 27:21
  think we finished 8th. But then we've just worked it
• 27:25
  all winter long, practice every weekend.
• 27:28
  I think I got a book with him and Andy Husbands.
• 27:34
  Yep, it's one of the best barbecue books out there and the
• 27:37
  two amazing guys. I love it when we get to see him
• 27:39
  up north and they still cook occasionally.
• 27:42
  They're a lot of fun and still probably the biggest influence
• 27:47
  in my program. There's still a lot of Chris in
• 27:49
  my program and Chris Kapell from Dizzypig.
• 27:52
  That was the second class I took, and there's still a lot of
• 27:55
  Chris in my program too, and a lot of learning.
• 27:59
  I'll share one if you don't mind.
• 28:03
  So Chris bases his flavor profiles on where he cooks based
• 28:07
  on if you look at a map of the United States at night and
• 28:11
  identify where your cook site is.
• 28:14
  If your cook site is within a very heavily lighted area, you
• 28:19
  can be more aggressive with your flavors because you got a higher
• 28:22
  population that has experienced more food, more taste and
• 28:26
  everything. If you're in a dark heart, you
• 28:30
  better get your super simple. That this actually genius.
• 28:38
  Yeah, and then you called it Coconuts with the Lights, so
• 28:41
  it's pretty cool. But I try and take one Class A
• 28:45
  year if I can still to this day. You can always learn more and
• 28:52
  say you spend $600 to go to somebody's class.
• 28:57
  Seems like a lot of money, like you said earlier.
• 28:59
  However, if that if I learned two or three things from that
• 29:05
  class that helps me win a category or win a grand
• 29:10
  championship, it's worth it. I'm not trying to find new
• 29:16
  programs and new everything. But that's not true.
• 29:20
  Like right now I got the yips with brisket, so I'll throw
• 29:23
  anything against the wall. But trust me and trust and
• 29:26
  believe I've cooked 9 brisket recipes in the past nine
• 29:28
  contests. Wow.
• 29:32
  And it's stupid because I know better than that.
• 29:34
  Do you find those two or three things?
• 29:35
  That's all you need. Exactly.
• 29:38
  So definitely go out there and take a class, everyone.
• 29:44
  So working with your wife, how did it when he started?
• 29:47
  Yeah, it was just y'all. How did that flow into and how
• 29:50
  long did it take y'all to get a routine?
• 29:53
  I'm not long at all. You've met Kim.
• 29:56
  I call her Olivia Catherine Darnell, OCD.
• 30:01
  She's got to have a list. She's got to have order, she's
• 30:03
  got to have a regimen. And very early on, she's written
• 30:09
  down every recipe we've ever cooked.
• 30:12
  We have packing lists for everything that are the same.
• 30:15
  And somebody asked me last week what my brisket injection was.
• 30:21
  I made. I made an injection in years,
• 30:26
  probably 10 years. She makes all the sauces.
• 30:30
  Injections should make sure we have everything we need.
• 30:34
  And we probably have had maybe 3 fights in the trailer over all
• 30:40
  the time that we've done this. We communicate pretty well.
• 30:43
  We have a good time. We rely on each other's
• 30:47
  strengths. Yeah, it's pretty, pretty
• 30:51
  boring. The best exciting thing we do is
• 30:54
  dance where we're living. But to me, I think like I was
• 30:59
  talking to Paul and Lynn and all the people that do the husband
• 31:02
  and wife duo is, is to me, they are the best because that's the
• 31:06
  person that knows you the best. That's the person that can
• 31:09
  motivate you the best. That's the person that can cheer
• 31:12
  you up the best. Go out there and get them next
• 31:14
  time or and give you the best opinion that you don't doubt
• 31:18
  that they have your best interests in mind.
• 31:21
  So that's why I like, I love to see how you doing and Paul and
• 31:25
  Lynn and all the other couples out there that shows that it can
• 31:30
  be done because most people would be trying to get away from
• 31:32
  their family when they had comfort.
• 31:35
  But y'all showing it can work and it's y'all keep it fun and
• 31:41
  y'all ain't out there arguing or anything.
• 31:43
  And y'all has a have a routine because when I was talking to
• 31:46
  Paula Lynn, she does the same thing as your wife and have
• 31:50
  everything wrote down, the temperature, the weather, all
• 31:54
  that and what date the results is.
• 31:58
  That's the person that you know that you can count on.
• 32:02
  When we've had switching to drums, we've had a little bit of
• 32:07
  a sea change in. Now Kim gets up when I get up
• 32:13
  and she's out there on the porch and she's staring at those
• 32:16
  needles and she's working the drums and she's keeping them at
• 32:21
  the right temperature. She is, Tim Sheer is called her
• 32:24
  one of the best drum cookers in the world because of the
• 32:26
  attention of detail that she has.
• 32:29
  And if she just sits there and she's on it, and I think maybe
• 32:35
  even I've gotten a little bit too relaxed about not paying
• 32:40
  attention to myself. So I'm going to trying to figure
• 32:44
  it out. But yeah, it's changed things
• 32:46
  and change things for the better.
• 32:48
  She's more in tune with the cook now.
• 32:50
  She hasn't built a box all year. I've made every one of them.
• 32:55
  And yeah, it's it's just created more of a team dynamic, which is
• 32:59
  awesome. Exactly.
• 33:00
  And honestly, I wouldn't do this without her.
• 33:03
  Yeah, honestly. God, Truth.
• 33:05
  That's what I thought to Bill Hines, a Triple H, and he said
• 33:08
  the same thing. Every wife didn't help him.
• 33:11
  He wouldn't want to do it anymore.
• 33:13
  Yep. So definitely understand that
• 33:16
  because they are a vital part and when you win, she wins.
• 33:20
  It's a team effort. Isn't that Luke is Luke and Kim
• 33:24
  as it's a team effort. So without each other, she only
• 33:28
  goes as far as you go and you go only go as far as she goes.
• 33:31
  That's right. But I'm advocate for that
• 33:34
  because I don't know why she, even though she watching the
• 33:36
  kids right now. That's a vital part what I do.
• 33:39
  And she's supporting me telling me, hey, because I didn't I was
• 33:43
  on the fence about doing this podcast.
• 33:44
  And she was like, what is it going to hurt?
• 33:46
  Just get out there and try it. It's not going to hurt.
• 33:48
  And I was like, OK, And when I went to Memphis in May and
• 33:53
  that's when I met Tim and all that.
• 33:55
  And I met Harry Sue and all. And I was like, Tim asked me to
• 33:58
  be on the podcast. And I'm sitting here looking at
• 34:00
  him like you, Tim Sheer, you asked me to be on my fuck
• 34:06
  because I in 2023, that's when I met Mark Bayless, who is just, I
• 34:11
  can't say enough good things about him.
• 34:15
  And he was cool and welcomed me and my wife and let us meet
• 34:19
  Johnny Trigg. And that's how I got my little 2
• 34:23
  second cameo on the BBQ USA, the Memphis and May episode.
• 34:27
  And just because of Mark Bailey, he let me try on his
• 34:31
  championship ring you got from Memphis and May.
• 34:34
  And I was like, this dude don't even know me.
• 34:36
  He's welcoming me and my wife and stuff like that.
• 34:39
  And that's I loved it because it showed her what I was bragging
• 34:43
  about how the BBQ community is can't be matched and nobody
• 34:48
  can't tell me any different. And is she starting to see and
• 34:54
  know and wanting to go more and she going to help me time to
• 34:59
  time for when I cook? But yeah, is is that person
• 35:03
  there? You get the right person and
• 35:05
  nothing that you can't do. Yeah, Mark Bayless is one of my
• 35:09
  one of my best friends. He hates it when I say that we
• 35:14
  travel a lot together and he and I, he's just a great guy, man.
• 35:19
  He's so helpful and so close to the BBQ community and he really
• 35:23
  does a great job for Blues Hog. We do a lot of trade shows
• 35:26
  together and stuff and we really work well together.
• 35:29
  And yeah, I could see Mark doing that.
• 35:31
  He's just, he's just a giver. And when I saw him this year, he
• 35:36
  was the same way. Drugged me over to Tim, drugged
• 35:39
  me over to Jordan Kirkpatrick. And he made me meet the guy.
• 35:43
  He was Paulie from Bucky's. He let me meet him.
• 35:46
  Oh, yeah. Also, I want to talk to you like
• 35:50
  he has an interesting job. He does.
• 35:54
  He's he's actually texted me this morning.
• 35:55
  He's got to do it. Best trade show right now.
• 35:58
  And I just texted him and said I just talked about you on the
• 36:00
  podcast. He'll be all worried.
• 36:04
  I love winding them up. And like, he handed Bucky
• 36:08
  stickers out. I was like, that's before I knew
• 36:12
  who he would. I was like, right sticker.
• 36:15
  All right. And you competed over 300
• 36:18
  contests across 30 states. It might be more now, but what
• 36:22
  do you believe is the key to longevity, consistency and the
• 36:26
  hunger to keep going? Man, I don't know.
• 36:31
  It's, I'm going to go back to something that Darren said.
• 36:37
  I'm a 286 contest, by the way. Just look for that on
• 36:44
  barbecuedated.com. And Darren once told me, he said
• 36:49
  as long as this continues to be fun, I'm going to continue to do
• 36:52
  it. And he's 100% right.
• 36:56
  We've done this now for, I think this is our 12th or 13th year,
• 37:00
  and it's still fun. And we think about all the
• 37:05
  friends that we have that we made in the beginning part that
• 37:09
  aren't in BBQ anymore, but they're still friends.
• 37:12
  And then the new friends that we make along the way.
• 37:15
  And like last weekend in Idaho, we cooked next to meat candy.
• 37:19
  Q who let us borrow a bunch of stuff.
• 37:21
  And we had a blast with them. We had a really good time and we
• 37:25
  can't wait. We're trying to figure out when
• 37:26
  we can go out West and cook with them again because we just had a
• 37:30
  great time. And that's, that's what this is.
• 37:33
  This the people, it's the good time.
• 37:38
  The awards are fine, winning the recognition all that great.
• 37:42
  But it's the people and it's the fun and it's something that Kim
• 37:45
  and I do together and every couple looks for that thing.
• 37:50
  What can you do together? This is our thing and I couldn't
• 37:53
  be happier with it. Yeah, definitely good,
• 37:56
  especially doing it with your wife.
• 37:57
  You ain't got to rush and get back home because my wife is at
• 38:01
  home so I got to I've been out here 6 days so I got to get
• 38:04
  back. But she's there with you.
• 38:05
  So it ain't no rush to get anywhere because she's already
• 38:10
  with you. Exactly, which is excellent.
• 38:14
  And like I said, you said you meeting other people is just.
• 38:17
  I haven't even competed yet and I meet I've met so many people.
• 38:21
  If you back when COVID, that's when I really got into it
• 38:24
  because I was stuck in the house by myself.
• 38:26
  But before I was married and all I was doing watching YouTube and
• 38:30
  that's when Discovery Plus came out.
• 38:31
  So I was able to watch BBQ pitmasters because back then I
• 38:35
  was catching episode here and there back in the day.
• 38:38
  But I always had an interest in BBQ.
• 38:41
  But every time I did it, it was just everything tasted like
• 38:44
  lighter fluid but. And.
• 38:50
  When I got an interest in it, I went to Somebody House because
• 38:53
  back when I'm growing up in my community, all we had was the
• 38:56
  blue black kettles and stuff like that.
• 38:58
  So I went to Somebody House and I saw the pellet grill for the
• 39:01
  first time in 2020 and I'm like, what is this?
• 39:05
  And then when he got the stimulus check, I was like, I'm
• 39:08
  gonna go get me a pellet grill. And it was best thing I did
• 39:11
  because it allowed me to focus more on prepping the meat and
• 39:15
  not worry about the grill until I learned the meat and stuff
• 39:19
  like that. And then I can focus on working
• 39:22
  different grills because I had the meat down packed.
• 39:25
  So a lot of people Pooh Pooh the pellet grills, but I'm an
• 39:27
  advocate of it. Let me tell you buddy, it's
• 39:33
  these people who are purists. And oh, using the pillow grip?
• 39:39
  Come on, if you're using wood and you're cooking outside, who
• 39:42
  cares? And like I said, there's a
• 39:45
  million different ways to do this and be successful.
• 39:47
  Just this morning. Let's see.
• 39:50
  Yeah, my one cousin Aaron is going to get real personal, but
• 39:53
  I'm going to tell you anyway. My dad has my first Traeger, my
• 39:57
  Traeger 34 Pro and my cousin Aaron.
• 40:01
  And my cousin Herman's son, they went out and got the Traeger
• 40:04
  from my dad's house and Herman's going to cook on it today.
• 40:07
  Never made a piece of barbecue in his life.
• 40:10
  I've been on FaceTime with him all morning.
• 40:12
  Tell him what to buy at Walmart, how to clean that thing out, how
• 40:17
  to load it. And he's going to make ribs
• 40:19
  today. And his excitement to do it and
• 40:26
  my excitement to tell him how to do it and hope that it comes out
• 40:29
  that's but he wouldn't be cooking if he had to go get
• 40:33
  charcoal and light it. Whatever.
• 40:34
  He gets to turn on a Switch and that's fine.
• 40:36
  As long as you're cooking outside, it doesn't matter.
• 40:39
  Definitely and it helps boost people confidence and bring them
• 40:42
  more into BBQ because it's easier and they won't get
• 40:46
  frustrated and walk off. Because I gave up numerous times
• 40:49
  because every time I tasted that like lighter fluid and now I
• 40:52
  know that I didn't need to use lighter fluid.
• 40:55
  All this time I never, I didn't know about chimneys and all this
• 40:59
  other stuff and just being locked in the house.
• 41:03
  I you 2 taught me a whole lot and stuff.
• 41:06
  And then I didn't know about competitions until I just
• 41:10
  researching more and stuff like that.
• 41:12
  And I didn't know I was able to go walk around competitions and
• 41:16
  see the stuff like that. I had sketched this logo behind
• 41:19
  my head with the three animals. I sketched it a long time ago
• 41:22
  and just put it to the side and my wife just happened to find
• 41:25
  it. And what are you doing with
• 41:26
  this? I was like, I drew it.
• 41:28
  I wanted to compete, but I don't know anything about it.
• 41:31
  So that's what she now you do. Exactly.
• 41:35
  So I think all y'all that made videos and all that time where I
• 41:40
  was stuck in the house and paved the way.
• 41:42
  And that's why I know so much and know people be surprised
• 41:46
  that I know them because I, I, I do my homework.
• 41:49
  I don't try to get out there and not know what I'm talking about.
• 41:53
  And it surprises many people where I come up and oh, you saw,
• 41:57
  so you saw and so you saw and so, and that's what kind of
• 42:00
  opens the door to making connections, having an interest
• 42:06
  in what you're doing. If you just playing it by ear,
• 42:09
  you're not. That's what I tell people.
• 42:10
  Do your homework and the opportunity to present itself
• 42:14
  and you'll go from there. But just meeting people, I've
• 42:18
  met so many people. That ain't no way you would have
• 42:21
  told me back then that I would have be sitting here talking to
• 42:24
  you or talking to Tim or talking to Chris or talking to Harry Sue
• 42:27
  or Christy Van over or anything like that.
• 42:30
  I feel like you crazy, but it's just taking that first step to
• 42:35
  go to class outside of Georgia. People are like you going what,
• 42:39
  just for. Yeah, I love BBQ that much.
• 42:43
  I'll go to Virginia. I go to absolutely.
• 42:46
  I go to Illinois is that I'm going to the American Royal just
• 42:49
  to walk around because I love it that much.
• 42:52
  I love the people because they showed me love and I'm going to
• 42:58
  support the people that support me.
• 43:00
  And I know I went on a rant there, but.
• 43:04
  I know you're good, man, but that's the only way to get
• 43:08
  involved is to get out there and be in there.
• 43:10
  And just sitting back, just watching around the corner,
• 43:12
  you're not getting nowhere. You never know who going to say
• 43:14
  hey come on, I didn't got invited into numerous trucks and
• 43:17
  just to watch and all that just by just people like you when I
• 43:22
  took a class and people that haven't taken a class that hey
• 43:25
  you in the area just stop by and you can go and watch.
• 43:29
  And that that means a lot to me. And I know my wife.
• 43:34
  I know I talk about BBQ so much and people used to think I'm
• 43:38
  crazy and still think I talk about BBQ so much.
• 43:42
  But I say y'all understand. They might not understand, but
• 43:46
  they know y'all know what goes on because y'all experiencing
• 43:50
  and I love to can't wait till I get to experience some of the
• 43:54
  stuff that y'all get to do. So I look forward to that.
• 43:57
  Let's get back to the park. All right?
• 44:00
  By 2014 fifteen. That's when your chicken gang
• 44:04
  locked in. Was there a specific turning
• 44:06
  point where I guess you cooking chicken, it really kicked in
• 44:10
  gear 'cause you might be one of the best out there when it goes
• 44:14
  to chicken? Valentine's Day 2016 2015 Warren
• 44:28
  County pork choppers Donnie Bray had a class down in Tennessee.
• 44:32
  It was on Valentine's Day, I went with Rock MU Mall that a
• 44:37
  BBQ team from Virginia and we better fit without our wives.
• 44:41
  So we had Valentine's Day breakfast at a Waffle House and
• 44:48
  chicken was my worst meat and I remember Donnie Johnny cooked on
• 44:53
  backwoods and he showed us this process and I bit that chicken
• 44:57
  on that Sunday and I went and gave him a hug and picked him up
• 45:03
  off the ground. Thank you.
• 45:07
  He still to this day says that's the only time anyone's ever
• 45:09
  hugged me to barbecue contest and picked me up off the ground.
• 45:13
  I didn't like it. I said that's fair.
• 45:16
  Then we that's when we won. That's when we went on it and
• 45:21
  one chicken team of the year. And man, it was it was life
• 45:26
  changing, just the way he thought about it and the way he
• 45:28
  did it. And now since then, we've gone
• 45:31
  through several different iterations and different types
• 45:33
  of cookers. But yeah, the chicken game
• 45:35
  remains strong. And definitely because what I
• 45:39
  tried to do is I would pick you up myself, but I couldn't.
• 45:41
  I know because hey, I'm down. To this day, that's the best
• 45:46
  piece of chicken. It's, it's really good, man, and
• 45:50
  it's consistent and it's not complex and there's no scraping.
• 45:55
  And people act like I'm giving away the world right now.
• 45:59
  You can go. If you can't find that recipe
• 46:01
  online, then you ain't trying hard enough because it's out
• 46:03
  there. But yeah, he, I mean, that that
• 46:05
  was the turning point. And yeah, ever since I've just
• 46:09
  been like, Yep, it's going to roll.
• 46:12
  So in 2016, how did you get involved with the World Food
• 46:15
  Championship? Gosh, yeah.
• 46:20
  We just want we went to back then, it had over 130 teams from
• 46:26
  all over the world. The team that was across from us
• 46:30
  that year was from South Africa. The Bride brothers.
• 46:33
  They were amazing. My gosh, those guys get it done.
• 46:37
  That's where I met Brad Orson from the Shed.
• 46:40
  Such a great conversation. I won't repeat that one.
• 46:45
  Pretty amazing. And we weren't planning on the
• 46:50
  level of team that was there. We weren't planning on making
• 46:53
  the top ten and having to cook the BBQ final.
• 46:56
  We had plans to go the next morning.
• 46:58
  We were to get up at 4, drive to New Orleans for beignets, come
• 47:03
  back stuff at the Shed, and then come back and go home.
• 47:07
  But we finished 7th in the KCBS contest.
• 47:11
  It was like, OK, what are we going to do tomorrow?
• 47:16
  And I remember Mötley Crüe was there and they'd finished
• 47:19
  outside the top ten and they'd asked me.
• 47:21
  They said, hey, we have some Wagyu Tri tip, do you want that
• 47:27
  for the final tomorrow? And yeah, we got that from them.
• 47:31
  Then I had to go Google what is a Tri tip because I'd never,
• 47:35
  that's a California thing. We didn't know what it was.
• 47:38
  So we spent the whole night back at the hotel research and what
• 47:42
  we're going to do with this thing.
• 47:43
  We called Danielle from Diva Q and got her help and her
• 47:47
  knowledge and that we had to all cook on the same thing.
• 47:51
  We all had a Deep South smoker and one of the things that you
• 47:56
  have to do to Tri tip is I smoked it and then I seared it.
• 48:00
  Searing it in a Deep South is it's a gravity feed.
• 48:06
  So we concocted a method of putting a cast iron pan down on
• 48:11
  the heat tube. I was in the cooker all the way,
• 48:17
  like my whole torso, and they're searing this thing off.
• 48:22
  And yeah, we cooked it perfectly.
• 48:25
  Very nice. Gosh, it was barely medium rare,
• 48:28
  but that's how you have to do it.
• 48:30
  And then we made our lobster bacon Mac and cheese, which I
• 48:34
  thought the girls messed up. They had to leave before awards
• 48:40
  and that this guy took him to the airport and before they got
• 48:44
  in the car. I'm like y'all messed up.
• 48:47
  Just FYI, we're not going to do because you guys screwed up the
• 48:50
  Mac. So I went to awards.
• 48:54
  I got I sat by myself because I was sad because we weren't going
• 48:58
  to do well. And I drank a bunch of Jack
• 49:00
  Daniels, went to awards, sunglasses on because I'm just
• 49:05
  going to stand up there and root for my friends.
• 49:07
  And all of a sudden they call us World Food Championship, BBQ
• 49:13
  champion came from 7th place to 1st.
• 49:18
  Then I had to cook against 9 chefs.
• 49:22
  That was something these guys all had these teams of people
• 49:25
  and finding ingredients from all over the world.
• 49:27
  And I'll never forget the guy from Hawaii, the seafood chef
• 49:32
  James Apticon, He's chef. I'm bringing in this cheese.
• 49:36
  It has to say 39 cost like $2000 a month.
• 49:41
  Like, what are you cooking? I was like, I went to Walmart,
• 49:44
  bought a bunch of $10 racks of Smithfield ribs.
• 49:48
  And that's really where I met. I met Darren.
• 49:50
  And because he was there to support his friend Carrie Luke,
• 49:53
  she ended up winning the whole thing that year in steak.
• 49:57
  And yeah, just being in that environment was a lot of fun.
• 50:00
  That was a big game changer. Spits of cheese, all right.
• 50:07
  And 2021, you took home the chicken and you took chicken at
• 50:11
  the American Roll. How was that moment?
• 50:14
  Be on stage for that. Best barbecue moment we've ever
• 50:19
  had being on that stage with all your peers out there, getting to
• 50:25
  get that hold that square trophy that was bucket list.
• 50:30
  I mean, I think sits in our living room right in front of
• 50:34
  the center always will. And that's just it was just a
• 50:38
  great experience getting to do that.
• 50:41
  It was. And that's the goal is to get
• 50:42
  back there and do it again. And yeah, I got goosebumps
• 50:48
  thinking about. Even compared to the Jack last
• 50:52
  year. Yeah, we were second last year
• 50:57
  in Chicken of the Jack, which it was still great.
• 51:03
  Listen, getting up to go on that stage also was a bucket list
• 51:06
  item. We didn't hear our name the
• 51:08
  first time we went. And so to get up there and do
• 51:10
  that, we were one appearance point from a 180.
• 51:14
  That's the thing that hurts the most, because I can promise you
• 51:17
  that was not an 8. We don't turn in eights, man.
• 51:21
  It may taste like shit, but it's going to look pretty.
• 51:23
  Those points are free. Yeah, that, especially with the
• 51:29
  two different types of meat, you have to turn at the Jack.
• 51:31
  That was a big deal. I still would love to get that
• 51:34
  first place chicken at the Jack too.
• 51:36
  That'd be special. Yeah, I've been watching it
• 51:39
  because LC BBQ was playing it live on Facebook and I was like,
• 51:43
  oh, Luke came in second. Yeah.
• 51:46
  I was like, OK, And over the years you bought built
• 51:51
  relationships with folks like Tim Shear, Brad, Joe, Chris.
• 51:55
  How do those connections come about and what roles do they
• 51:58
  play in your growth of being a pitmaster?
• 52:04
  Oh gosh, just being in the same events, in the same circles and
• 52:10
  spending time and getting to know those guys, they're all
• 52:13
  great friends and mentors and we teach each other and it's just,
• 52:19
  it's great learning, but it's also great camaraderie.
• 52:23
  And the BBQ league when it's first started out had a lot to
• 52:27
  do with that. And being the only one of the
• 52:31
  only East Coast teams that were involved when traveling around
• 52:34
  and cooking different places and being filmed, you and I get to
• 52:39
  spend some time with some people and that's, I wouldn't trade
• 52:42
  those relationships or anything, man, Those guys are super
• 52:45
  helpful, super generous, just amazing.
• 52:48
  And yeah, we all talk on a daily basis now, and I've already sent
• 52:55
  Brad a text while we're doing this telling him that he needs
• 52:57
  to do it. Exactly.
• 52:59
  I call y'all the Rat Pack like Frank Sinatra now.
• 53:02
  Yeah, a little group. Yeah, it's fun, but it's also,
• 53:09
  it's not an intimidating group of people.
• 53:12
  Once you're around them, everyone's pretty open,
• 53:15
  everyone's pretty nice, and that's what the best part about
• 53:18
  it is. Yeah, yeah.
• 53:19
  Everything was meeting you and meeting Joe and meeting Chris
• 53:23
  Shaffer and meeting Tim, because most folks would think with all
• 53:27
  the stuff Tim is into that he would be like.
• 53:32
  But Tim is just relaxed and laid back and just cool.
• 53:36
  I'm like wow. Because the stuff, the amount of
• 53:39
  stuff people don't know he's involved in, it's like Mofo
• 53:43
  would be freaking out pulling their hair out and he just
• 53:46
  didn't see him. He just relaxed.
• 53:49
  High speed, low drag. That's Timmy Exactly.
• 53:53
  I'll go. No stop.
• 53:55
  Let's get it. Yeah.
• 53:56
  Yeah. If it's wrong, it'll fix itself.
• 54:00
  And Travis Clark told me the most amazing story about Tim.
• 54:04
  I'm talking about he came, he didn't have his finisher powder.
• 54:06
  He came in my truck and just start grabbing a bunch of
• 54:10
  seasoning and just start dumping stuff in and just grinding and
• 54:13
  just let me add some more of this.
• 54:15
  Let me add some more of this. OK, now it's right.
• 54:18
  And just left out the truck. I was like, what?
• 54:22
  Best best pallet and BBQ hands down.
• 54:26
  Best palate in BBQ. He watching him finish a meat is
• 54:31
  like watching a really disheveled Rembrandt.
• 54:35
  It really it's messy and shits all over the place, but the
• 54:40
  flavor on the at the end is going to be fantastic.
• 54:44
  Yeah, and. Fantastic he's he gave me one of
• 54:47
  my best lessons in BBQ ever and I'll never forget it.
• 54:50
  And he gets best rib I ever had. So I thought that 5 minutes
• 54:54
  after I ate it, you got to smack him in the face right now.
• 54:59
  Wow. And he's right.
• 55:02
  He's right. That was one of the best lessons
• 55:03
  I've ever got. Yeah, that makes sense also.
• 55:07
  Yeah, definitely. And when it come to him, they
• 55:10
  think about all the other stuff that you do.
• 55:12
  But 2017, he was a monster out there and we're waiting for
• 55:16
  Travis Clark, but he was a monster out there and folks
• 55:20
  don't realized that because based on the other stuff that
• 55:24
  he's involved in and he not cooking as he was, but.
• 55:30
  He's still, anytime he goes and cooks, he's a threat to win that
• 55:34
  contest. Cooking 3 * a year doesn't
• 55:38
  matter. He's still, he can still do that
• 55:42
  at that level. And yeah, in terms of finishers,
• 55:46
  there's no question who the best is in the game.
• 55:48
  That's not even up for debate. Yeah, definitely.
• 55:52
  And next question is about your nickname, the Merit BBQ.
• 55:56
  What does that say about your leadership and your approach to
• 56:00
  community on the circuit? I try man, I try to make sure
• 56:04
  everybody has a good time and I try to be as supportive as I can
• 56:08
  be of organizers. And, and just this year, there's
• 56:12
  a lot of things that this is all symbiotic system.
• 56:17
  We all have to work together and we decided this year that no
• 56:22
  matter what an organizer asked us to do, we're going to do it.
• 56:28
  Whether it's an ancillary or People's Choice or whatever, we
• 56:33
  got to start being all in, we got to start putting out or
• 56:36
  these events are going to go away.
• 56:38
  Last week we're in Idaho at the Meat and Tater, which I've been
• 56:43
  calling the Annella because she ran that contest out there in
• 56:46
  Boise and it was fantastic. But we flew, we borrowed, we
• 56:50
  pulled a bread. We we didn't have anything, but
• 56:53
  they had a potato ancillary and we did it and finished 8th.
• 57:00
  I had four more minutes. I think we would have finished
• 57:03
  first. I just needed more time.
• 57:05
  I didn't have enough time. I should have started it earlier
• 57:08
  and I didn't, but I did some learning on it.
• 57:11
  So now the next time that I have to do that, I know what I can do
• 57:13
  ahead of time and be ready. They needed entries because
• 57:17
  that's how these things grow. You have to support the local
• 57:21
  stuff. You got to do dessert, you got
• 57:23
  to do they got a mystery. We do that.
• 57:26
  That's really we have to or these people are, why would why
• 57:30
  do, why should we do this contest?
• 57:31
  If the teams are going to engage, they just want to come
• 57:34
  in, cook and leave and they have to start giving back and making
• 57:39
  their event what they want it to be or else they're going to go.
• 57:42
  Away exactly as well as community.
• 57:45
  I went to Pigs and Peaches in Kennesaw, GA No lie.
• 57:50
  They had the cooks in one area and the festival probably like
• 57:55
  maybe half a mile down the road and I was like oh wow, what is
• 57:59
  this this you supposed to be promoting this and you got them
• 58:04
  separate from everybody else. They don't get to see the
• 58:08
  purpose of the festival, which is the BBQ competition and they
• 58:12
  got, we had to walk way down the road to get to the festival
• 58:15
  where you got the cooks off to the side and the crowd don't get
• 58:18
  to see them and stuff like that. And I was like, this is
• 58:21
  disappointing. But they have to be accessible.
• 58:25
  That's the number one thing. You have to be accessible to the
• 58:28
  public. You have to be accessible to the
• 58:30
  other teams, being accessible to judges.
• 58:33
  There's this notion out there that judges and cooks are at
• 58:38
  odds with each other. Man, I love judges.
• 58:40
  Come to my tent, say hi, come by afterwards, try food, come cook
• 58:45
  with us. I love a judge in the tent.
• 58:47
  You know, we're trying to find some judges to be in the tent
• 58:50
  here the next few weeks as we get ready for the Jack.
• 58:53
  So that's what we're trying to be about.
• 58:55
  Does it work all the time? No, but that's what I guess
• 59:00
  being part of the mayor of BBQ Town is like trying to bring
• 59:04
  everybody together. Just making trying to have a
• 59:06
  good time. Yeah, but that's what I love
• 59:08
  about you. You get out there and you speak
• 59:10
  to people regardless of big time person or as a small somebody
• 59:14
  just starting and you take time to be personable.
• 59:18
  And even when meant to me, important to me is 98% of the
• 59:24
  people say my name wrong and continue to say it wrong.
• 59:27
  I don't know where the R comes in there, but it just and that
• 59:32
  meant a lot to me that you just said Tavis, because I'm like
• 59:35
  most people just gloss over it and Travis, Travis, I'm like, I
• 59:39
  don't have majority of people on the podcast called.
• 59:43
  I take great pride in saying people's names right.
• 59:46
  I think it had a bare minimum that's now.
• 59:49
  I also am terrible at names in terms of remembering, so I use a
• 59:54
  lot of dudes and buddy and pal, but generally I'm pretty good.
• 1:00:00
  Yeah. But yeah, it's just making
• 1:00:04
  people feel welcome, I think is one of the biggest things.
• 1:00:07
  Yeah, and as I mentioned, you do a podcast also.
• 1:00:10
  What inspired you to start your podcast and what was your goal
• 1:00:14
  when you started? So that was a COVID project for
• 1:00:18
  me and inspiration really comes from a podcaster and author
• 1:00:24
  named Tim Ferriss. He does the Tim Ferriss show and
• 1:00:28
  he's an Angel investor slash experimenter.
• 1:00:32
  He uses, he experiments on his own body with all kinds of crap,
• 1:00:36
  like any like he's just really into self improvement, not only
• 1:00:43
  on a mental level, but also the physical level.
• 1:00:45
  And it's something that I got into a long time ago.
• 1:00:48
  He wrote the four hour body, the four hour chef, the four hour
• 1:00:51
  workweek. It's not really 4 hour things.
• 1:00:54
  It's just ways to be more efficient than to spend your
• 1:00:57
  time on the right things. And one of the things he has a
• 1:01:00
  podcast and one of the things that he does is he he interviews
• 1:01:06
  people who are the best in their field to find out what makes
• 1:01:10
  them tick, find out what their habits, routines and rituals
• 1:01:14
  are, the things that make them successful.
• 1:01:18
  And I wanted to do that with the world's best fit masters.
• 1:01:22
  And that's where I created a lot of my questions from and a lot
• 1:01:28
  of my interviewing style from is from Tim and but I also wanted
• 1:01:32
  to catalog a lot of our BBQ pitmaster stories.
• 1:01:38
  I think the history of our hobby is very important and having
• 1:01:45
  having Johnny Trigg answer the questions that I asked I think
• 1:01:49
  is an important thing in terms of having a record of the things
• 1:01:55
  that he thought was important to him while he was cooking.
• 1:01:58
  And I can say that about pretty much all of my guests, even I've
• 1:02:02
  interviewed a couple of backyard guys over the years just to get
• 1:02:06
  their perspective on things. And it's just very important to
• 1:02:10
  me to have those stories and to have those things and so that
• 1:02:17
  there's a record of it. But also, I can tell you I've
• 1:02:21
  learned more from my own podcast than most people could ever say.
• 1:02:26
  Just I we were, I keep coming back to Boise, but Bobby
• 1:02:31
  Stanfield and Moni cook BS BBQ Outlaws.
• 1:02:34
  They cooked in Boise last weekend.
• 1:02:36
  They quit cooking a while ago. They still have all their stuff.
• 1:02:40
  So they cooked a couple contests this year, not just seeing him
• 1:02:44
  and seeing them and enjoying them.
• 1:02:45
  But one of my favorite interviews was all of all time
• 1:02:48
  was Bobby. And Bobby, one of the things
• 1:02:53
  that he does is he takes his knife home and he it's that
• 1:02:59
  knife 21 times every knife, not 22, not 2021.
• 1:03:09
  Ever since that podcast, I have done that every time. 21 It
• 1:03:14
  doesn't mean anything and it doesn't.
• 1:03:17
  I'm not sure it affects the sharpness of the knife, but it's
• 1:03:19
  just something that's stuck with me and it gives me another
• 1:03:22
  routine or ritual something. But I know that my knives have
• 1:03:25
  been honed and that they're sharp and they're ready to go.
• 1:03:28
  There's lots of little things like that.
• 1:03:30
  My dear friend the Urkel Sheila, who we lost this year from Uncle
• 1:03:34
  Pigs, one of the things that he used to do and nobody knew it.
• 1:03:42
  And I know it's probably only been shared on one or two
• 1:03:45
  podcasts and probably by my wife after since his tragic car
• 1:03:49
  accident. But the Urkel would take a
• 1:03:50
  handful of salt as soon as he was parked and he'd walk around
• 1:03:53
  the trailer and sprinkle salt, salt ring around his trailer.
• 1:03:57
  And one time Kim asked him what he was doing and he said I was
• 1:04:03
  trying to get you. Just keeps the evil spirits out.
• 1:04:08
  We haven't done it in a long time that Kim did it, and even
• 1:04:12
  if it's just a way to remember Oracle, we'll continue to do
• 1:04:15
  that. It's those little things, yeah,
• 1:04:17
  those little things that make people and make BBQ special.
• 1:04:20
  That's cool. Yeah, and now you got a record,
• 1:04:22
  so everybody that you talk to, you can go play and listen to
• 1:04:27
  them and even just to catch. I was two days a week.
• 1:04:32
  I work from home and that's what I caught the episode where you
• 1:04:35
  were talking to the two guys about a BBQ class and I was
• 1:04:38
  like, everybody need to be listening to this.
• 1:04:41
  Listen man, that episode is with Brian Corbett and David Moore
• 1:04:46
  from Hot Mess, Brian Corbett from Smoke and Scullys.
• 1:04:50
  That podcast is the most important podcast I've ever
• 1:04:55
  done. I think, I think it is and
• 1:04:59
  there's so much good knowledge in there about how to take a BBQ
• 1:05:02
  class, how not to take a BBQ class, What are the mistakes?
• 1:05:06
  What are the things you know? And those two are two, the best
• 1:05:09
  that I know. Taking them along with myself, I
• 1:05:11
  consider that one of my superpowers 'cause you got to
• 1:05:14
  know what you're looking for and you got to know what works
• 1:05:16
  inside of your shit. It doesn't.
• 1:05:19
  You can't just go and I'm making that mistake right now with
• 1:05:22
  brisket. I'm going and looking at a class
• 1:05:24
  says, oh, maybe I'll try this stupid.
• 1:05:26
  I know how to cook a brisket. I got the most calls and
• 1:05:30
  Category has the best calls in his brisket.
• 1:05:32
  What am I doing? Just cook the damn thing.
• 1:05:34
  That's what Brad keeps telling me.
• 1:05:35
  Just cook it. But yeah, I'm shocked that thing
• 1:05:39
  doesn't have 1000 listens. I don't think there's a real
• 1:05:43
  metric out there to track your listens because I know that I've
• 1:05:47
  had hundreds of people tell me they've listened to that one.
• 1:05:49
  But anyway, doesn't matter, that's a whole different
• 1:05:52
  subject. Exactly.
• 1:05:53
  But I don't do this for that crap.
• 1:05:56
  OK exactly. For those who are listening now,
• 1:05:58
  definitely check out So Glad. It's called, yeah, it's called
• 1:06:03
  Pitmaster and All Virginia Spoke podcast.
• 1:06:05
  You can find it anywhere. And yeah, it's how to take a BBQ
• 1:06:09
  class. And I think it's, gosh, I think
• 1:06:12
  it's so important, such an important episode.
• 1:06:15
  Yeah, it was very good. I tell you about.
• 1:06:18
  I had to mention it. I was like, oh, this is a good
• 1:06:20
  episode of like people ain't listening, right?
• 1:06:25
  But balance and competition, logistics, creative development,
• 1:06:29
  family life with Kim. How do y'all keep everything
• 1:06:32
  moving during peak season without losing the fun or the
• 1:06:35
  spark? That's all.
• 1:06:37
  Part of it is being prepared. And sometimes, you know, life
• 1:06:44
  gets in the way. Sometimes you get less rigid.
• 1:06:49
  And Donnie. But I keep going back to Donnie
• 1:06:52
  Bray from Warren County Pork Choppers.
• 1:06:53
  One of his key messages was you might be a really good cook, but
• 1:06:59
  you're not going to beat me during the week because nobody's
• 1:07:03
  going to work harder than me. And he's right.
• 1:07:06
  I'll buy 30 pieces of chicken to get 9, get 10.
• 1:07:11
  If I don't have 10, I'm going back to the store.
• 1:07:13
  You get more chicken because you just, you can't.
• 1:07:20
  You have to have full confidence in the things that you've
• 1:07:22
  brought and you have to have full confidence in the way.
• 1:07:25
  Those are all things you control.
• 1:07:27
  You can't control what goes on in that tent, but you damn sure
• 1:07:30
  control everything up until that point.
• 1:07:32
  Exactly, and I put a quote that you said at the time of paper.
• 1:07:36
  Never give up on a piece of meat.
• 1:07:38
  There's always stuff you can do to make it better.
• 1:07:42
  That's another Tim Sheer. That's a Tim Sheer.
• 1:07:46
  I was like, that's the. Importance of having a gateway
• 1:07:50
  drum in your setup, 1/2 hour on the gateway is an eternity.
• 1:07:55
  You got something that's not done.
• 1:07:57
  It's such an important toolman it really such an important
• 1:08:02
  tool. And yeah, it's never give up.
• 1:08:09
  Never give up. You've got time.
• 1:08:10
  But at the same time, I've never made Kim run a box, never put
• 1:08:15
  her up against it. It's you have it done, you're
• 1:08:19
  ready to go. You have your process.
• 1:08:21
  Get it done. Everybody stop missing turns.
• 1:08:24
  Quit. Don't put people in that
• 1:08:26
  position. No need.
• 1:08:28
  Exactly. You know what I'm saying about
• 1:08:30
  Tim. He's without him in the BBQ
• 1:08:33
  community and he's established so much stuff in there.
• 1:08:37
  Without him, it'll be a huge void because when he came out
• 1:08:40
  with the drum, it just changed the whole stratosphere of
• 1:08:44
  barbecue. And I like people don't like, I
• 1:08:48
  caught him on the episode. I called him the Steph Curry of
• 1:08:50
  BBQ because when he came up with that drum, it just changed
• 1:08:54
  everything and made stuff easier and like people was able to go
• 1:09:01
  to sleep. And I told him that people
• 1:09:04
  probably thought he was crazy and at that time, but he just
• 1:09:08
  changed the whole scope of everything.
• 1:09:11
  And I told him the intakes and all that.
• 1:09:13
  I was like, how did you? It feels like it's weird because
• 1:09:18
  I was talking to Paul Keltner of Reuters or tutors.
• 1:09:21
  He said he was using his drum back way back when but it never
• 1:09:24
  it didn't look nowhere like with Tim Hair.
• 1:09:28
  I go back to the King of the Smokers, All those guys coming
• 1:09:31
  out and lighting their pits at 6:00 in the morning.
• 1:09:36
  The real secret of their success is sleep.
• 1:09:42
  So I've been up since 2:00 in the morning, sitting in the
• 1:09:45
  parking lot. Who's going to be better at
• 1:09:48
  turning times, them or me? Them every time because they got
• 1:09:53
  a full night's sleep. Exactly.
• 1:09:55
  Sleep. Sleep is a superpower.
• 1:09:57
  Sometimes it's not that complex. Sometimes it's easy.
• 1:10:01
  That's why we have the rules that we have.
• 1:10:03
  I don't have to go to bed at 9:00, but I better be in bed.
• 1:10:06
  I can read, watch a movie, whatever, But you ain't gonna be
• 1:10:12
  out dicking around. You need to be in the sack.
• 1:10:15
  Get some rest. What advice would you give
• 1:10:17
  someone starting a first competition?
• 1:10:21
  Oh man. Number one, practice #2 have a
• 1:10:26
  routine and #3 when you get to that contest, you stick to that
• 1:10:31
  routine no matter what. You're going to see a bunch of
• 1:10:33
  different things. Don't get caught watching.
• 1:10:38
  Oh, that guy did this, I need to do that.
• 1:10:40
  No, you don't. Do your stuff.
• 1:10:42
  See how your stuff does and then act accordingly afterwards.
• 1:10:46
  That's the number one rules. Have a plan, stick to your plan,
• 1:10:49
  cook it till it's done, be confident in your information
• 1:10:54
  and move forward. Isn't that the only way to go?
• 1:10:58
  Make sure you take that class, All right?
• 1:11:02
  And I'm, we've been going a while, so I'm going to get into
• 1:11:06
  the, I got a couple of games I'm going to run through with you
• 1:11:08
  and get you out of here. All right, No college
• 1:11:10
  basketball. They got the tournament bracket.
• 1:11:12
  So I came up with a tournament bracket of BBQ meats.
• 1:11:15
  And you just tell me which one you prefer to eat.
• 1:11:18
  Matchup #1 pork belly versus smoked Turkey.
• 1:11:22
  Who pork belly? OK.
• 1:11:28
  Next match up is lamb versus pork ribs.
• 1:11:32
  Oh, pork ribs. God, that's hard.
• 1:11:35
  That's harder than you think. Smoked ham versus sausage.
• 1:11:40
  Oh, sausage, aren't they? All right, hamburger versus
• 1:11:44
  steak burger, OK, Burnt ends versus beef ribs.
• 1:11:52
  Not fair beef rib. All right, pork chop versus
• 1:11:58
  smoked Bologna pork chop. All right, hot dog versus BBQ
• 1:12:07
  shrimp. Hot dog?
• 1:12:10
  That's easy. OK.
• 1:12:12
  Brisket versus smoked chicken. Brisket all day.
• 1:12:16
  All right, next round, pork belly versus pork ribs.
• 1:12:20
  Pork belly, all right. And harder sausage versus
• 1:12:26
  hamburger. Oh man, come on, Hamburger.
• 1:12:31
  All right. Beef rib versus pork chop, beef
• 1:12:37
  rib OK, and hot dog versus brisket.
• 1:12:43
  Trisket, all right, finally make you do.
• 1:12:47
  Final four, pork belly versus hamburger, burger OK, and beef
• 1:12:54
  real versus brisket. Damn it, I'm gonna go beef rim,
• 1:13:00
  OK? And it's only because I eat
• 1:13:01
  brisket all the time and I don't eat enough beef ribs in the
• 1:13:06
  world because they truly are one of the best things.
• 1:13:08
  Like you even mentioning it is making me go to Restaurant Depot
• 1:13:13
  this week and buy me a big rack, full platers and probably film
• 1:13:18
  it. I literally got an LLC just to
• 1:13:22
  go to restaurant depot just to get a call you.
• 1:13:27
  Just yeah, you just messed me up.
• 1:13:29
  Now I got to go to this week and get rid.
• 1:13:31
  All right, beef rails versus burger in the finals.
• 1:13:37
  Oh man, that's where we ended up.
• 1:13:40
  I'm not picking a winner. I love both those things.
• 1:13:45
  I have to go with Burger. If I had to eat one food, the
• 1:13:47
  rest of my life would be Burger. I love him.
• 1:13:50
  All right, hamburger the winner. All right, I made these other
• 1:13:53
  guys especially for you. I did my homework.
• 1:13:56
  All right, this is rapid fire questions.
• 1:13:59
  Oh, no. All right, which trilogy is your
• 1:14:03
  favorite? Original, prequel or sequel?
• 1:14:06
  And those don't know he's a big Star Wars fan.
• 1:14:09
  I am. Oh, it's got to be the original
• 1:14:12
  now. Fun fact, my real name is Lucas
• 1:14:16
  and I go by Luke. But I was and I'm still puzzled
• 1:14:19
  as to why my parents didn't name me Luke went off the gate
• 1:14:23
  because I was named after a Luke.
• 1:14:25
  But it was not Luke Skywalker, it was from Luke and Laura from
• 1:14:31
  General Hospital. And it was not my mother's idea,
• 1:14:34
  it was my dad's. Wow.
• 1:14:38
  Yeah, original, but all of them have their merits.
• 1:14:41
  Even the first one with Jar Jar Binks.
• 1:14:43
  It's still a great watch. All right, Jedi, or sip.
• 1:14:46
  All right. Jedi, but I would have the
• 1:14:49
  purple lightsaber because that kind of means you have some dark
• 1:14:51
  tendencies. That was my next question.
• 1:14:53
  Favorite life lightsaber color? I'm going.
• 1:14:57
  To go with either the purple or the gold.
• 1:15:01
  All right, So the gold you only see in the Acolyte or at the end
• 1:15:07
  of The Last Jedi when Ray had a yellow lightsaber?
• 1:15:11
  All right, Millennium Falcon or X Wing?
• 1:15:14
  Falcon all day. Best villain?
• 1:15:17
  Darth Vader. Darth Maul.
• 1:15:20
  You have to say Vader because you know the entire thing is
• 1:15:24
  based on Darth Vader, but Darth Maul back in the day was still
• 1:15:30
  Darth Maul. Amazing.
• 1:15:32
  What a great character. All right, R2D2 or BB8?
• 1:15:38
  R2D2 Not even close. Favorite Star Wars movie?
• 1:15:42
  Empire Strikes Back is the perfect movie.
• 1:15:46
  All right, and who's scarier, Emperor Palpatine or Java that.
• 1:15:56
  Man, I'm like a Palpatine just because Java could throw a
• 1:15:59
  party. Which bounty hunter is the best?
• 1:16:04
  Oh man, that's tough because everyone wants to say Boba Fett
• 1:16:11
  that he's probably not my favorite.
• 1:16:13
  My favorite is probably Bosque, the lizard looking guy that was
• 1:16:18
  on the you only seen the one time on the bridge of the Star
• 1:16:21
  Destroyer, an empire whenever he's sending out all the bounty
• 1:16:24
  hunters to go look for Han Solo and boss.
• 1:16:27
  Just terrifying, just like that. Yeah.
• 1:16:32
  Like I'm not interested in that. All right, which Star Wars ship
• 1:16:37
  would you want to fly? Oh, the Falcon all day.
• 1:16:42
  All right, would you rather be trained by Yoda or Obi Wan?
• 1:16:47
  Yoda. All right.
• 1:16:50
  Teach you the BBQ. Most underrated Star Wars
• 1:16:55
  character. Who?
• 1:17:00
  Wedge Antilles? OK, Wedge was Luke's friend.
• 1:17:04
  The story was not explored enough in the movies, but Wedge
• 1:17:07
  was Luke's best friend on Tatooine who went to the Empire
• 1:17:10
  early but also featured and a lot of the movies didn't feature
• 1:17:15
  but he was a character in a lot of them.
• 1:17:17
  All right, would you rather wield a double bladed Saber or
• 1:17:21
  dual sabers? Double bladed.
• 1:17:24
  All right, who's cooler? Han Solo?
• 1:17:27
  Orlando Carissian, All right, hidden question.
• 1:17:31
  Who's cooler man? Really depends on which Lando
• 1:17:34
  you're talking about. If you're talking about Billy
• 1:17:36
  Dee Williams, then Han Solo is cooler.
• 1:17:39
  If you're talking about Gambino in the movie Solo, come on.
• 1:17:45
  Perfect Lando if they don't make a Lando Movie Orlando series
• 1:17:48
  with that guy. Yeah, I like you.
• 1:17:51
  Yeah, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, when he played in there, I loved it.
• 1:17:56
  He's a good. So good.
• 1:17:58
  All right, that's the end of the question.
• 1:17:59
  I got one more quick Tournament of Star Wars characters.
• 1:18:04
  Oh my God. Darth Vader versus Lando.
• 1:18:09
  Lando, all right. And Chewbacca versus C3PO.
• 1:18:16
  Chewbacca. All right, Han Solo versus BB8
• 1:18:21
  Han Solo. All right, Yoda versus Baby Yoda
• 1:18:25
  or Gore the Child. Yeah.
• 1:18:28
  Gorogo Grogo. Yeah, yes, Yoda.
• 1:18:34
  All right. And Luke Skywalker versus Mace
• 1:18:41
  Windu. Come on.
• 1:18:46
  Fair. Oh, wow.
• 1:18:49
  All right. R2D2 versus Mando Din De Jarin.
• 1:18:55
  The Mandalorian and R2D2 Mandalorian.
• 1:18:59
  All right, Obi Wan Kenobi versus Darth Maul.
• 1:19:06
  Darth Maul. All right, Princess Leia versus
• 1:19:10
  Boba Fett. This is Leia, come on, Return of
• 1:19:15
  the Jedi bikini scene. All right, Lando versus
• 1:19:21
  Chewbacca. That's tough.
• 1:19:24
  Donald Glover, Orlando. Han Solo and Yoda, all right.
• 1:19:31
  Mace versus Mondo, right? Darth Maul versus Princess.
• 1:19:38
  Oh, Princess Leia. All right.
• 1:19:43
  You're pulling on a lot of different emotions here with all
• 1:19:45
  this shit. The Lando versus Solo, all
• 1:19:49
  right, And Mace versus Leia. Leia.
• 1:19:55
  All right, Final and Lando versus Leia.
• 1:19:58
  I know. And you have the perfect couple.
• 1:20:00
  Donald Glover, Lando with a young Carrie Fisher.
• 1:20:04
  Come on. I'm gonna go with Leia just
• 1:20:06
  because. Right.
• 1:20:09
  And I consider that one a tie as well.
• 1:20:12
  I need to put you in touch with this.
• 1:20:14
  I interviewed another guy, his name is Willie William Tashina
• 1:20:18
  smoking Willie T He loves Star Wars too.
• 1:20:20
  He got a life-size R2D2 and got the suitcase the R2D2, and I was
• 1:20:27
  like. I'm looking around my office
• 1:20:30
  here. I got a bunch of stuff, dude.
• 1:20:33
  Too much stuff. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:20:35
  All right. We made it to the end of the
• 1:20:36
  interview. If you got anything to promote
• 1:20:39
  shout outs and stuff you could do that also.
• 1:20:42
  OK, yeah, you can find us@oldvirginiasmoke.com.
• 1:20:46
  There's another website out there that's not heavily
• 1:20:49
  publicized yet, Luke darnellbbq.com, YouTube channel,
• 1:20:54
  Old Virginia Smoke Instagram, Old Virginia Smoke Twitter is
• 1:20:59
  Luke Darnell. I don't get on there much and
• 1:21:06
  man, all the partners that help us, Snake River Farms, Blues Hog
• 1:21:12
  Compard, BBQ Data, and I'm missing some Big Papa Smokers,
• 1:21:19
  Gateway Drums, all these people really help us out so much with
• 1:21:24
  everything that we do and couldn't do it without them.
• 1:21:27
  And it's partnerships, it's not sponsorships.
• 1:21:30
  You got to work together, you got to help promote and do this
• 1:21:33
  thing. So hopefully we have a lot of
• 1:21:35
  exciting stuff coming out this fall.
• 1:21:37
  I got some new business initiatives coming out, maybe
• 1:21:40
  some products, hopefully, and we'll see.
• 1:21:44
  Maybe we can do this again in the spring and catch up on all
• 1:21:47
  that stuff. Oh.
• 1:21:47
  Yeah, and get that class together.
• 1:21:49
  Y'all serious? We can do that.
• 1:21:54
  All right. I appreciate you coming on and
• 1:21:56
  we'll see everybody next episode.
• 1:21:58
  We just wrapped up another session of BBQ therapy.
• 1:22:01
  Remember, stay patient, stay passionate and keep that fire
• 1:22:05
  burning. Hit subscribe, share the good
• 1:22:07
  smoke, and pay the secretary on your way out.
• 1:22:11
  Have a blessed day.