Latest / BBQ Therapy / Smoke ’n Magic — Bre Via & Brad Colter | Black Magic

Transcript

Smoke ’n Magic — Bre Via & Brad Colter | Black Magic · BBQ Therapy

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I remember I was talking to Michael down there.
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I'm like, man, are they going to get mad if I'm walking around
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with a beer? He's hell, I don't care.
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My dad's the mayor ain't going to do nothing.
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That's how small it is. And what shocked me was we were
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in that the bank parking lot, and they left the bank open so
0:23
we could go to the bathroom overnight.
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So that's like, where else does that kind of stuff happen?
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Mayberry. Yeah, I know, right?
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Wow, that was it was a great time.
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Even had a visit from Street Bike Tommy and.
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Yeah, Street bike Tommy came out.
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Yeah, that was fun. Lego Ham BBQ.
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Lego Ham BBQ. Lego Ham BBQ.
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Lego Ham BBQ. Your BBQ off, get your BBQ.
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Ever notice how the sound of sizzling meat and the smell of
0:50
smoke can silence the noise of the world?
0:53
Now that's BBQ therapy. If the fire moves you like,
0:57
subscribe, share and help spread the message because growth, like
1:01
good BBQ, takes time and patience.
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Welcome to your therapy session. Welcome to the show.
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I got one rule, make yourself at home.
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I have no sponsors so speak freely.
1:18
That could be dangerous. All right, let's take it way
1:22
back. OK, Where are each of y'all from
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and how did BBQ play a part in your last growing up, if any?
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So I'm originally from Lake of the Ozarks here in Missouri and
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I started cooking BBQ at a very young age at BBQ restaurants
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around the lake. That's where I developed my
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passion for water cookers. Than one of the biggest cookers
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I've ever cooked on was a gigantic masonry water cooker.
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And that's what I learned on. And then years and years later
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we started to get into this BBQ thing and of course I gravitated
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right towards the water cooker and that's where was backyard
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cooking. And then just met her.
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And then we decided to do this together and it was fun and it's
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just been magical. I don't know is the right word
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to say, but. I was born and raised in Texas,
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grew up there, so Texas flavors for BBQ or the way I lean with
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more of the salt and heavy pepper and not really any sauce.
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Growing up, BBQ was something that the family always did, but
2:21
more often than not, it was mostly the men in the family and
2:25
the women did the sides in the house.
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And it wasn't that I couldn't, it was just how it was and I
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didn't think anything of it and moved up here to Kansas City in
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2002. And that was a shock, 'cause I'm
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like, what's all this sweet stuff you're putting all over
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this BBQ? I had to learn that that Kansas
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City likes their BBQ sweet. And then met Brad back in 2020
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and he took me to my very first BBQ competition and I didn't
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even realize that was a thing. And.
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It was only my second one. But and I fell in love with
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barbecue and the BBQ family more than anything and said let's do
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it. To be honest, she was the first
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one to get a ribbon for the team, so we're legendary Bloody
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Mary. When y'all had their first date
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at the BBQ competition, where where one of y'all competing or
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y'all was just going to walk around and how did it?
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Yeah. I was competing with a friend of
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mine and. He was on a drinking team with
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side BBQ is what I call it. Not much has changed.
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Yeah. And so I found out that they had
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an ancillary category for the Bloody Mary and I said I don't
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know anything at that point. I didn't know anything really
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about BBQ or smoking meat or anything.
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And I said but I can make a mean Bloody Mary, can I do that for
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the team? And Brad's sure, why not?
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So took second place out that time and have taken first most
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every other time. Did they get you hooked on that
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day? Oh, it did.
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It really did. I had to pay.
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I had to pay the judges off just to get that hook set.
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Pay them. You got it.
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Yeah, they did. They did.
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Hook, line and sinker. So how long did you cook with
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that team before you realized that it wouldn't go anywhere?
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So I really was the cook of the team.
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We cooked twice together. Brie and I cooked under the
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umbrella of the team once. And then that's when we decided,
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hey, we want to go do this. And we really don't want the
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drinking team thing, so we want to go do it.
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And we wanted to make friends in the BBQ community and do our
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thing. And we developed, We came up
4:44
over the winter of between 2020 and 2021.
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We came up with the name Black Magic as our team name and fell
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in love with that, fell in love with the logo.
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We cooked under that umbrella for two years and then we were
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forced to switch to Smoke and Magic, which was, oh, darn.
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But we love the Smoke and Magic logo and the brand and
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everything we've done with that now.
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So what made y'all come up with black magic?
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Is it something about magic did y'all like or it just sounded
5:11
good? We were just watching TV one
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night and there was something about black magic.
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Like we, we were throwing names around like Freaky Tiki Barbecue
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and B&B barbecue. And one night we were just
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watching TV and black magic. Something was said about black
5:26
magic and I'm like, oh, I like that name.
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And then I went and did some looking at a logo, and our old
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logo kind of look like the green Monster Energy drink.
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Like it's melting looking. It's still on our trailer to
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this day. We have not replaced it.
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It confuses the hell out of people, which I like.
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Nostalgia, if you if they're they were around, then they get
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it. So I heard a podcast Is the air
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conditioner working? Yeah, there's no AC.
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You turn it up high enough, there's a breeze.
6:00
Yeah. We have a new trailer on the way
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then this one has a 15,000 BTU. Air.
6:09
Conditioner based on the look at that kitchen behind, y'all got
6:12
to have something new. It's one of those those things
6:17
where it's not really a huge deal until it gets to be July
6:20
and August and it gets up to 116 in the trailer and is hot and it
6:25
takes a lot out of you and we're exhausted when we get.
6:29
You're gonna be tired anyway, but like really tired from the
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heat. And so it's a game changer.
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I'm sure we'll see. Serving sweaty BBQ.
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Yeah, I think there is a team out there called Heavy Sweaty
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BBQ or something. I get it.
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So how long did y'all cook after that before y'all said OK?
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We get pretty good at this. So shameless plug here.
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We practiced like from 20 to 2021.
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That whole winter we practiced, got our, we got our new water
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cooker and we got the trailer and we practiced and thought we
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had our recipes down because I was too stubborn to go take a
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class or do anything like that or listen.
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To my advice, but that's. That too.
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And so we went to our first competition as Black Magic and
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we got, I think it was a 662. Oh, it was horrible.
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And like, I was devastated. I'm like, man, I thought we had
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this down and we were scheduled to go to a competition the very
7:31
next weekend in Columbia, MO. And Monday I'm just in my fields
7:36
at work and got my phone out and I'm going through Facebook and a
7:40
ad for the BBQ league came up and I'm like, let's just look at
7:45
it. It was 100 bucks.
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OK, she's been telling me. Really.
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How that came about I still give.
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You credit for. This so the ad came up like what
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the heck, 100 bucks? I spend 100 bucks on dumb stuff
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all the time. Why not try this?
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And then I got watching videos. I'm like, oh, that's
8:02
interesting. I didn't know that.
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And so I came home and told her she was right and said let's
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watch some of these videos. And over the course of three
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days, we researched these videos, built profiles that we
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liked. Now we knew we had some
8:17
direction on flavor profiles and stuff.
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And then we went out the very next weekend and we're like a
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693 score, 7th overall with a couple calls.
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And we were like, what the hell just happened here?
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And and. Like we kept composure during
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the awards, but we went back to the trailer and were like.
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And then probably the smartest decision that happened after
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that was I turned social media over to her and she's so
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personable and she's so attentive to everything, and the
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social media aspect happened. That's good.
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From somebody that didn't have Facebook at the time.
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So yeah, I. Know yeah myself I watched BBQ
8:59
here and there but I didn't have cable back then but when COVID
9:02
hit that's when I really got into barbecues I was better
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before I was married and I was stuck in the house by myself
9:10
growing up and all I seen was black kettle grills and that was
9:14
it so I went to somebody house during COVID and I was looking
9:18
in the garage and I was like what is that he said that's a
9:21
pellet grill a what so then when they were giving out a stimulus
9:26
check I was still working so I have nothing to do with it so I
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went and bought me a pellet grill and it just changed my
9:32
life because it allowed me to focus on the meat and not worry
9:36
about the grill since it was easier and then I can come back
9:38
and learn grills right it helped me up so much and stuff it
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changed my life oh. For sure.
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Yeah, so, and then that's when I got the BBQ league and I ran
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through that also. And I didn't know BBQ
9:55
competitions existed like that. I just thought it was just ATV
9:58
show. And after that I started going
10:01
around, walking around them and all that and getting more
10:05
knowledge than that's what led me up to today.
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All right. Go ahead.
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Just it's a great resource. The BBQ league, if you're
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getting in, that's a really good resource to get your feet wet.
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And then highly recommend going and taking an in person class
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with one of the guys that are out there competing and winning
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on a regular basis. Do your research, find the
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people that are cooking on the similar equipment that you're
10:30
cooking on, and go take their class.
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Exactly because I I did that and I've taken five classes.
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Then I took the first couple before I realized, OK, why am I
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taking these classes and you cooking on different stuff than
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I I plan on doing it. So I did a Myron Mixon, Robbie
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Royal, and then I went to Joe Pierce and then I went to Luke
10:52
Dornell and then I went to Chris Shaffer class, which he was all
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yeah, people look at me like I'm crazy, but I say I love BBQ that
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much that I'm going to travel out there and take these
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classes. I don't care where they're at
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because they've proven that what they do it has results in it.
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Oh for sure, if you went to Joe's class, you were within
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about a mile of our house. Oh yeah, I can.
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Throw a rock down there. I got out there.
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I just was like I couldn't get around.
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It was like I couldn't get Uber. Somebody had to travel like 30
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to 40 minutes to come get me to take me 3 minutes around the
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corner. Yeah.
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So I was like lucky somebody stayed in the same hotel idea so
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I was able to catch a ride, but I was like I'm in the middle of
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nowhere. All right, so let's go to y'all
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tag teaming on competitions. How do y'all divvy up the duties
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and stuff like that on what each of y'all do when competition
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expect? Yeah, for the most part prep we
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pretty much share I would say equally I typically.
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It's whoever's got time. Yeah, I'm like, it really
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depends. I'm a teacher and Brad's got a
12:06
full time job like it. It just depends on and what the
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kids are doing. And but we, I typically will
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make the brines and the injections and get that ready.
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I'll put together the list of supplies that we need and Brad
12:20
usually goes and picks them up and then we typically trim meat
12:23
together. This let's see, this year I
12:27
cooked the ribs and the brisket for the team and Brad does the
12:30
chicken and the pork the last. This is our first year to do it
12:34
like that. I was doing chicken before that
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and Brad went out to one competition without me and got a
12:40
chicken call and said he wanted to do chicken.
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So I said I have at it. I'm not a very smart man.
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Chicken trim is horrible. It is horrible.
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I will pawn that off on any unfortunate soul that wants to
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do it. Yeah, but yeah, it's been great.
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And Brad's been a great teacher for me too and like really
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building that confidence up. So the first year I I did
13:11
chicken, just chicken. And like he told me he goes if
13:14
you screw it up, it's a dollar piece of chicken.
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Like it's not that big of a deal you.
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Just play around and. So that was a big confidence
13:22
booster there did pretty well in chicken that year.
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And then the next year he said, all right, what other meat do
13:28
you want? And I said be him from Texas, I
13:30
want brisket. So let's go with brisket.
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So did I've been doing brisket since then and until like I
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said, we just flipped with the ribs and the chicken.
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And that's just more to keep it fresh for us.
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We can each cook all four meats perfectly or but I think it's
13:46
perfectly, but we can each do them.
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But it's just fun to mix it up. Next year she might be doing
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pork and I'll be doing brisket. When I see couples doing it
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together and it's working, I love seeing it because it proves
14:01
that couples can work together and a lot of people do it just
14:05
to get away from their wives and stuff like that's the best
14:08
person you can have in the in the truck with you because you
14:11
can definitely count on that person.
14:13
They can they know what to do, they how to cheer you up if you
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frustrate or anything like that. Because if you in with a random
14:20
guy and he gonna know if you're upset or but she's able to tell
14:25
and you're able to tell when something's wrong and
14:27
something's off. And since both of y'all are
14:29
interchangeable, hey, you stand up, you can go over there and
14:32
cool off. I'll take over and go from
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there. And that's excellent.
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Yeah, we, we say that like in the trailer, it's like almost
14:40
like a dance. A lot of times we don't even
14:42
have to talk. We're just he needs something.
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He doesn't even say anything. Like here's the foil, here's
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this whatever he's getting ready to do or vice versa.
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And it's just like our BBQ dance.
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Y'all need to do? It and we and we like to have
14:56
fun, so we're all about the music laughing and if you're not
15:00
having a good time, it's not worth it and usually your Cook's
15:04
not going to be good either. It I we like I believe in the
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whole good vibes, positive vibes thing.
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And if you've got, if you're full of all the negativity or
15:16
things aren't going right, I, we found that typically our cooks
15:19
don't do as well. Oh, here's our puppy.
15:22
It's it's our. Is this Mad Max?
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That's. Max is probably more popular
15:26
than we are. Max is huge.
15:30
He's a big boy, but he's a big baby, yeah.
15:33
This is countertop height right here, yeah.
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Yeah, he's our. He thinks he's a lap dog.
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Yeah. Like a horse.
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Some of the littlest have. So what association job?
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Cook for KCBS or any other ones. We've really, we've done KCBS.
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We've done KCBS and GBA once. Yeah, here.
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We didn't Myron hog drop Myron ago.
16:00
Yeah, that was a blast. That was so much fun.
16:03
They got a small town down there.
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I'm in Georgia. I remember I was talking to
16:07
Michael down there. I'm like, man, are they going to
16:10
get mad if I'm walking around with a beer?
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He's hell, I don't care. My dad's the mayor ain't going
16:16
to do nothing. That's how small it is.
16:21
And what shocked me was we were in that the bank parking lot and
16:27
they left the bank open so we could go to the bathroom
16:30
overnight, so. Like where else does that kind
16:33
of stuff happen, Mayberry? Yeah, I know, right?
16:38
Wow, that was it was a great time.
16:40
Even had a visit from Street Bike Tommy and.
16:42
Yeah, Street bike Tommy came out.
16:44
Yeah, that was fun. Wow, that's the crazy.
16:47
Yeah, it was. I was down there for the class
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and it was like, OK, I was like, where am I?
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Like I went in the past. So so you got to know Tracy
16:56
Mixon a little bit. I didn't get to talk to him, but
16:59
he was there helping with the class.
17:02
Yeah, that's a whole story for off Air.
17:05
He he might make some good moonshine, we'll say.
17:08
We'll send you that. I believe that they got plenty
17:12
of woods they can shed and everything else.
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All right, and let's go into y'all recipes.
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How do y'all usually come up with the recipes y'all come up
17:23
with? Do y'all tinker around or do you
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come up with a game plan in advance or?
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Literally, we'll just be sitting here and one of us will come up
17:34
with an idea, and then we'll start bouncing ideas off each
17:37
other and we'll build something. But one of my favorite things to
17:39
do is just to go to the grocery store with no plan.
17:43
Well, are you talking about are? You talking about our content
17:46
stuff that we. Do content or the BBQ
17:48
competition. The content on your website?
17:51
Yeah, you too. Sorry.
17:51
I was just a lot. Of times I'll go to the grocery
17:54
store with no idea of what I want to do and I'll just build a
17:58
recipe in the grocery store and just start kind of building with
18:02
the acid, the sweet, the salty. I'll bring all those elements in
18:07
and that, that's that. We have a lot of fun with that
18:10
and I just get a harebrain idea. Probably one of my favorite ones
18:13
is the rib eye wrapped stuff. Poblano.
18:16
That was the first YouTube video we turned out of the studio and
18:20
it's still to this day is probably one of the most tasty
18:23
ones, I think. Like.
18:25
It's really good, the pain in the butt to execute, but they're
18:27
very good. It's not really that big of a
18:30
pain. So when y'all decide to put
18:34
recipes, how do y'all balance staying authentic to smoking
18:37
magic versus being relevant on social media?
18:43
For the most part, like Brad said, we cook what we like to
18:47
eat and what our family likes to eat, and I think that resonates
18:51
a lot with our followers and with people on YouTube that are
18:55
looking for different things. We do sometimes look and see if
18:59
you see trends coming out, like I did the Pickle Pizza 1 because
19:03
over the summer Pickles were everywhere and they were pickle,
19:06
pickle, pickle things. And so trying to figure out
19:09
something different. And it was really ironic because
19:13
right after I was sitting there thinking, we probably need to do
19:16
something with Pickles. And then one of my friends was
19:20
like, Oh my gosh, I had this amazing pickle pizza.
19:23
And I'm like, tell me more. And then so I took that and then
19:26
just built on a little bit and I was like, huh, I guess it works
19:31
because hamburger pizza we love and there's Pickles on that.
19:34
So could we twist it and change it up a little bit?
19:36
And I don't know, I would say that's probably mostly what we
19:40
do. We did.
19:41
We tried to do the main meats to get the main smoked meats more
19:45
than anything out there. And we'll probably come back and
19:48
revisit those again. Yeah, we'll do a different takes
19:50
on them. And then with the holidays,
19:53
different holidays, we try to incorporate.
19:56
If it's 4th of July or Father's Day or Christmas or
19:59
Thanksgiving, we try to incorporate something that.
20:03
Is usually a favorite at those times, so.
20:07
I need y'all to I'm a lover of pork chops.
20:10
I know y'all do the loin, but I need y'all to do the pork chop.
20:14
You can name it the podcast Guy Pork Chop or something like, oh,
20:19
look at I need a pork chop over here.
20:22
That's actually one of the ones on my To Do List that I want to
20:26
get done. But we're looking for it.
20:27
I was like, I don't see the pork chop.
20:30
And then I was like, I was interested in.
20:32
I was like, OK, they make Bloody Mary OK.
20:35
I don't, I'm not a drinker, so I I don't know much about them.
20:38
And I was like, OK, how did this fit in?
20:40
And then when I saw the meatloaf and the soup and stuff, I was
20:43
like, oh, that's genius. And that that grilled cheese
20:47
that was in that video, to this day is the best grilled cheese
20:50
I've ever eaten in my life. And we just made it up that day.
20:54
Yeah, and the tomato soup is probably the best tomato soup
20:58
that I've had The. Kids will go run down down to
21:01
the storage in the basement and grab Bloody Mary mix and come
21:04
out and start tomato soup. Wow.
21:08
Well, the. First time we made it like that.
21:10
And my one daughter, Reese, she's oh mom, that looks so
21:14
good. And I said, yeah, we used our
21:15
mix, our bloody Mary mix in it. And she goes, oh, and she looks
21:18
sad and I said what's wrong? And she goes, does it have
21:21
alcohol in it? Because that means I can't have
21:23
it. And I said and she got all
21:27
excited and she tasted it and her eyes lit up and she's mom.
21:32
This is so good. Definitely.
21:35
And I wanted to ask about this hot dog video.
21:38
I'm scared to I'm scared to click on it.
21:41
I'm scared to click on it at all just by the thought.
21:45
So you get the hot dog shirt also.
21:48
Our daddy. So we try to every once in a
21:53
while try to find some like theme days or some national
21:56
days. And we knew National Hot Dog Day
21:58
was coming and so we decided to have a 4th of July party with
22:02
some of our BBQ friends in Kansas City, invite them over,
22:06
and just let them do their own dressing on a dog.
22:10
We took a bunch of Snake River dogs and some certified Angus
22:14
beef dogs and grilled them up and let them do what they
22:17
wanted. They got really creative.
22:20
There were some really good ones.
22:22
The Lady in the Tramp thing was not my idea and I was.
22:24
It was awesome. It was one of those I was on
22:29
camera and I couldn't. You were in the moment, babe.
22:31
It's all right. Yeah.
22:33
Yeah. I'm not proud.
22:35
I'm not proud it is. So fine.
22:37
It is so fine. I got like I'm scared to click
22:40
on this video. The last podcast we were on the
22:43
whole, they introduced us to their podcast with the video.
22:49
And then it went off the rails from.
22:51
There but the. Longest podcast segment they'd
22:54
ever had for an hour and a half of just talking about.
22:58
Hot dogs. Wow, yeah, I had to mention it.
23:03
I was like, wow. I loved.
23:05
It was a fun video we had. The outtakes were like the
23:08
outtakes. Were funny at the end of the
23:10
like the full length YouTube video at the end the outtakes
23:13
were really funny and and it was fun to do it with our BBQ
23:17
friends and family. They just, they really got into
23:20
it and embraced it. And with us shooting content all
23:23
the time, they most of them don't.
23:26
So it was. It's fun for them to be able to
23:28
play around with that and. See the concepts.
23:31
We're already planning a Christmas 1 so.
23:36
She hasn't told me about this yet, so we'll see if it involves
23:41
me getting up on the counter again and being Mr. December.
23:44
I don't know if I want to do that.
23:48
And Brad works for a local mining companies.
23:50
The guys may or may not have given him a really hard time
23:54
about it, but. Wow, they love me.
23:57
They do love you and they'll comment on there.
24:00
It's so funny. I'm surprised that ain't went
24:03
super viral. Oh, it's shown up on some
24:07
screens in the training room. Nothing like their safety guy
24:12
with a bourgeois pose with a hot dog.
24:16
Wow. Yeah, that's what they said too.
24:21
I thought she was professional. Best training ever.
24:25
See, now the hot dog is taking over again.
24:28
It always happens. Let one in.
24:34
All right, let's take it back again.
24:36
They're made for Kansas City BBQ contest.
24:39
What kind of contest? Is it just like a regular
24:42
competition or is it just one meet or you get to choose?
24:45
It's a competitor series. A4 Meet Competitor series.
24:49
So the first year though, it was changing.
24:51
Yeah, it's changed. But when we won it, it was
24:54
different. When we won it was a straight up
24:56
competition. It's still competitor series
24:58
because you had to meet certain qualifications to get in, but
25:02
the four meets were the same as you'd bring to any KCBS contest.
25:05
And it was judged by KCBS certified judges.
25:08
So like the requirements were you had to live within 60 square
25:11
miles of the airport, you had to have cooked 3 KCBS competitions
25:16
in the last year and be in good standing with them.
25:19
The whole concept and premise around the competition was the
25:23
airport. Our Kansas City International
25:26
Airport has 85% of the airport is local, so they've really
25:30
tried hard not to bring in a bunch of chains so that when
25:34
somebody lands in Kansas City, even if they don't get to leave
25:37
the airport, they can experience some of what Kansas City has to
25:40
offer. And the inside looks, there's
25:42
different sections of Kansas City that are represented there
25:45
at the airport. And it's a beautiful airport,
25:48
but the whole concept was exposing everyone to Kansas City
25:54
BBQ, and so they wanted to change it every year to have the
26:00
competition and every year and the new winner would take over.
26:03
That was the original concept. And the greatest thing about
26:06
this is there's there's been 3P3 different teams in that space
26:11
now. The newest team just took over
26:13
last week. Meet Rushmore.
26:15
Meet Rushmore. Yeah, but they've built three
26:19
brands now. So Smoking Magic was built out
26:21
of the airport, OG Bandits built out of that airport.
26:25
And now meet Rushmore. It's their turn at bat and
26:28
they're going to they're going to hit a home run.
26:30
So it what they're just not giving it to the Arthur Bryants
26:33
or the Gates or the all these other big brands already have
26:37
brick and mortars. They're giving other people a
26:39
chance to like get that exposure and get their brand going.
26:43
It's it. We couldn't do what we've been
26:45
doing without that. Like we we just wouldn't have
26:49
had the notoriety to do it. Yeah, we made job.
26:51
Get the courage to leave out there and do that.
26:56
Honestly, why not? Honestly, and this is not to
27:01
sound arrogant or anything, but that year, that 2022, we were
27:05
cooking really good. We weren't.
27:07
We were just at the cusp of getting that first GC, but we
27:11
were top ten and about every time out and we're like, we're
27:14
going to go have fun. The prize money was ridiculous
27:17
at this contest. We're going to make some money.
27:19
We're going to hang out with our friends.
27:20
We're just going to have a good time.
27:22
Honestly, Bree carried us through that comp.
27:25
Her two categories were high. She got a second brisket and 3rd
27:29
chicken, and I just placed right outside the top ten with my ribs
27:34
and pork. But it was just awesome.
27:37
We were both shocked. That was our first grand
27:40
championship. Oh wow, great time to come.
27:44
So after that, your job, any restaurant experience or
27:48
anything like that or. Not outside of waiting tables.
27:52
I worked at that BBQ restaurant when I was 16.
27:55
They were like, what do we do now?
27:59
The team that we worked with to start the restaurant, when we
28:03
after we won Made for KC, they were really good about helping
28:07
us with menu concepts and helping bring our vision to life
28:12
and I would definitely call it a success.
28:14
We got a lot of really good reviews out of there and we kept
28:18
it very simple. We just we stuck to traditional
28:21
KC BBQ. That first year was was
28:25
obviously the working out, I'm going to say kinks, but I mean
28:29
it in a good way, like the, because the logistics of having
28:33
two smokers and an airport. So there are things about that
28:37
you don't even think about. Like they're all the smoke that
28:40
goes up and out of those exhaust stands have to be scrubbed and
28:44
cleaned before they're admitted into the air because they can't
28:47
go into the engines of the planes because it was yeah.
28:50
So like the exhaust events, I can almost stand up in them.
28:54
Like they're huge knives, have to be tethered to a wall.
28:58
I'm left-handed, they're all tethered for right-handed
29:01
people. So like I'm looping it around my
29:02
back trying to do the cutting things that you just don't think
29:05
about in an airport that I mean, getting products in.
29:10
They'll just the logistics of working out all those kinks and
29:13
then working with the airport who had not really experienced
29:19
running a BBQ restaurant before and getting them to wrap their
29:23
brains around cooking ahead and what that looked like like.
29:26
You can't just snap your fingers in a briskets ready like it.
29:30
There's things that you have to do otherwise you'll be out food.
29:33
We got really lucky our first year when we walked in that
29:37
airport, they had about a two months before the airport
29:40
opened, they hired a very experienced pitmaster to come
29:44
in. We got lucky with getting Jacob
29:47
and he really made it easy to transition into that realm and
29:51
train the future. Pitmasters are coming through
29:53
that restaurant. Yeah.
29:54
OK OK sounds good. At least they set y'all up so
29:59
y'all could be successful. All right and so let's switch
30:02
over to y'all got 3 rubs, 3 sauces and a bloody Mary mix.
30:06
Can you give us a rundown on each product?
30:08
Because they are everybody know their award-winning, so give us
30:12
a rundown on each one. My, my baby is the Southern
30:18
twine. The Southern twine is our apple
30:20
cider vinegar based sauce. That it, it is fundamental in
30:25
all of our braising of pork. We add it into our sauces for
30:31
ribs and pork, ribs and pork. Yeah, we've even found out
30:34
lately. It's just in, I don't know if
30:36
anybody's ever heard of a Carolina red slaw.
30:39
People are making Carolina red slaw with the Southern twang and
30:43
raving about it. Yeah.
30:46
And also you can use it as a vinaigrette, salad dressing.
30:50
There's all different ways to that.
30:51
Even some Texas guys are putting it on their brisket and
30:54
competition mixed with sauce and it's doing well with that.
30:57
Probably my sauce baby would have to be the spicy.
31:00
Being from Texas, I like the I like the less spicy or the more
31:06
spicy, less sweet sauces. That one, just one best spicy
31:11
sauce on the planet at the American Royal.
31:13
So we're super excited about that.
31:15
My that's really replace ketchup in the house and my kids dip
31:19
everything in it. French fries, tater tots,
31:22
chicken Nuggets, hamburgers, it doesn't matter.
31:24
They love it. So that would and then we have
31:27
our traditional sweet sauce, which sold like hotcakes this
31:31
last weekend at the local fair. So everybody like that too,
31:34
because it's not no spice and Kansas City sweet.
31:38
And you get into the combination of that chicken rub with that
31:41
sweet sauce, the chicken recipe that Bree did and then I took
31:48
over afterwards. I have not changed her recipe.
31:52
It's so simple. It is the chicken rub and the
31:55
sweet sauce. It's that damn simple.
31:59
And we just don't overcomplicate the chicken.
32:02
And it's scored. It averages 175, most times 175
32:06
up if you hit your marks on it. We have the child that we name
32:11
too soon, which is the rib rub. The rib rub is phenomenal on
32:16
pork ribs. It's not overly sweet.
32:19
It's got that pepper. It does everything I want on a
32:22
rack of ribs. But then we found out during
32:27
we're getting ready for the restaurant that, man, this stuff
32:29
is really good on beef. It's exceptional on beef more so
32:34
than pork and so. Not more.
32:37
So it's on our competition. It's in, Yeah, it's in
32:41
hamburgers. It's grows great on steak and we
32:45
put it in our pit beans. So a really versatile, A
32:47
versatile rub that the rib rub is probably one of my favorites.
32:52
And then we've got the pork rub. So the pork rub, obviously great
32:56
on pork, but also we'll put it in our cheesy corn French fries
33:02
seasoning. My kids won't eat tater tots or
33:04
chicken or tater tots or French fries now without that either.
33:07
They want that in the spicy sauce to dip it in.
33:10
And then we'll also put it like, if I make pigs in a blanket,
33:14
I'll put the pork rub on the top of that and cook that in there.
33:17
It just adds a little sweet and a little heat to it.
33:20
It's something that like really and truthfully, the pairing of
33:23
the pork rub with the rib rub, that's when we won pork at the
33:27
Jack two years ago. That's what it was.
33:29
It was the pork rub and the rib rub and then it was the sweet
33:34
sauce with the Southern twang mixed in it as the pork sauce.
33:37
That simple. We use our products and we do
33:40
well with our products and. Play around with them like the
33:43
chicken rub. It's great also on roasted
33:45
vegetables. And actually people come up with
33:48
all these different ways they'll come talk to us about, hey, I
33:51
just used this rubber sauce this way.
33:55
And we love hearing that because sometimes we get tunnel vision
33:59
on how to use it too. And it's fun to hear the
34:02
different people's different takes and opinions.
34:04
And we also encourage people like play around with other rubs
34:08
or sauces, mix our stuff with other stuff, find your own
34:11
groove. That's what makes BBQ fun.
34:13
It's experimenting and having a good time and finding those
34:16
flavors. Yeah, it's like being an artist
34:19
and you got a blank canvas. So it's so many avenues that you
34:22
can create with it and not be jammed up in a box and say, Oh
34:27
no, it's supposed to be that way.
34:28
No, it's me is a way that you can do barbecue in your own way,
34:34
because if one person don't like it, 20 other people might like
34:37
it so. For instance, this last weekend
34:42
we were we got asked by the local mayor to come and set up a
34:46
booth and do some live fire demonstrations and sell our
34:49
products. And we do this Asian style BBQ
34:53
with like Tri tips and pork tenderloins.
34:56
And Saturday we were doing pork tenderloins and I didn't go buy
35:00
the usual sauce. I'd usually use that Japanese
35:03
BBQ sauce. And I was like, you know what,
35:05
I'm going to mix our sweet sauce with just teriyaki and 5050 and
35:09
see what it does. It was so good.
35:11
And so it just mixing sauces with teriyaki or just play.
35:18
We found that by accident playing around but.
35:20
Y'all got a new product? Oh out of y'all product, which
35:24
one is the fan favorite and which one y'all think is
35:26
underrated? It's hard.
35:28
They're all our babies. The Bloody Mary would be
35:31
probably my biggest baby. That's and was created in memory
35:36
of my dad. He loved Bloody Marys and I grew
35:39
up making them probably way earlier than I should have been
35:42
making them for him. But he loved them with lots of
35:45
flavor and some spice and said, Brianna, don't make it taste
35:49
like you just squeezed a tomato in the glass.
35:51
I yeah, I took that to heart. And that's it's near and dear to
35:58
my heart. Whenever we developed our sauces
36:01
and rubs, there was an outpour of people asking, are you going
36:06
to bottle your Bloody Mary? You should totally bottle your
36:08
Bloody Mary. Because at every competition,
36:11
people would just show up at our trailer expecting Bloody Marys.
36:15
Like the teams, we had all different kinds of people that
36:18
would show up. Judges after the fact would show
36:21
up and like after they judged wanting it.
36:25
And so when we then I had to I the Bloody Mary's where I cook.
36:31
It's a dash of this, dash of that, taste it and see.
36:34
But we couldn't do that if you're going to bottle it.
36:37
So I had to really nail the recipe down and play in an hour.
36:45
And then also like I built it. I thought it was perfect.
36:48
I made Brad a drink and I set it in front of him.
36:51
I had it on the glass. I had the ice and had the
36:53
liquor. And he's, this is like flat,
36:56
this doesn't taste like your normal Bloody Mary.
36:58
And I'm like, what? Give me that.
36:59
And I took a sip and I'm like, that is not what the mix tastes
37:03
like. So then I doubled everything
37:06
basically to account for the watering down of the ice melting
37:11
and the liquor being added in and then still wanting it to
37:15
come through with that bold flavor.
37:17
So that was a learning curve there for me.
37:20
Yeah, that the fact that one of the things that kind of spurred
37:24
that into bottling was we knew we were going in an airport.
37:27
And the second most popular drink in an airport is a Bloody
37:30
Mary. And it did not disappoint.
37:34
It's sold like wildfire in the airport and they still ask for
37:38
it to this day. It's not currently available in
37:41
the airport. We're hoping we're working our.
37:43
Hopefully bring it back. We're working our way back in
37:45
with it and hopefully get it back into Kansas City Airport.
37:49
Or at least get it where people can buy it.
37:51
They're going to be able to buy it.
37:52
And then from there, world domination.
37:56
All right, so with the parenting, the full time jobs,
37:59
brand building, traveling, competing, how do y'all avoid
38:03
burnout? We pretty much on the razor's
38:09
edge of burnout at all times. We woke up Saturday morning to
38:13
go woke up at 6:00 in the morning Saturday to go prep to
38:16
go stand on asphalt for 13 hours and cook over Santa Maria's for
38:21
public. Yes.
38:23
Pause to go watch my daughter do the parade because she was in
38:28
the band, the marching band. We had to walk up to go do that
38:31
and then come back. So we woke up and we looked at
38:34
each other and we're like, what the hell are we doing?
38:36
It just I. Do love it?
38:38
We do love it, like when we get out there and we get in with the
38:41
people and get to tell them our story and they get to taste our
38:45
products, especially if you get to taste it where we've cooked
38:48
it for you. It's easy to sell.
38:51
It's easy to sell. Once we were doing simple just
38:53
Santa Maria chicken drummies and flats with just the chicken rub
38:58
and sweet sauce and they were going through our buying our
39:02
chicken rub and sweet sauce so fast we couldn't hardly keep it
39:05
out on the table. That's good, I don't see how
39:09
y'all do it. I think we were cooking it, she
39:11
was cooking it. I got a 16 month old and I'm I
39:15
don't see how I'm making. It I.
39:19
Haven't used my grill and I don't know how long.
39:23
The kids have just grown with us as we've gone along.
39:27
They all four compete and kids cues are used to mine have aged
39:31
out now, but Owen still competes and they they see it like mine
39:37
don't go with us as much anymore.
39:39
But sometimes when we're doing these events or different
39:42
things, my girls will want to come help.
39:44
So, so that's been nice to have an extra set of hands to, to
39:48
help out with things. So it they've just kind of grown
39:54
with us and they've seen, they see the hard work that we put in
39:58
and what we're doing. And so we're hoping that it's
40:01
setting good examples for them of if you work hard at something
40:07
that you can make your dreams come true and you can do
40:10
anything that you set your mind to.
40:12
So just really want to show them.
40:14
That's possible, so whatever that might be for them, so.
40:19
Yeah, y'all doing a good job, y'all showing where y'all start,
40:22
the where y'all at. Now every time I turn around,
40:25
look online, y'all cooking somewhere.
40:28
And it all happens so fast. Yeah, For us, it's a little bit
40:31
in slow motion, but then you go break it down into years that
40:34
we've been doing this. Yeah, like we haven't been doing
40:38
this very long. And you look at the progression
40:40
of a lot of brands, we're moving in a really good at a good rate
40:45
that it's going to be good for us down the road if we keep if
40:48
we can keep it up. We just say ride the wave, don't
40:51
say no. And if you can possibly every
40:54
door that opens our opportunity that comes available, you've
40:58
really got to seize it because it may not come back around
41:01
again. And every opportunity or event
41:03
or different experience that we've gone to has opened doors
41:07
for more of those same things and just stair stepped our way
41:11
up to where we are now. I tried to say no, she beat me.
41:17
I agree with that 1000% because I tell people be prepared for
41:22
every situation because you never know when it's going to be
41:25
thrust upon you. Do your homework, do your part
41:29
and stuff like that because and do anything you.
41:33
If it's something that you really love, like me doing a
41:36
podcast, I do this after the kids go to sleep and I have to
41:40
get up at 3:45 every morning. But I love barbecue and I, Yeah,
41:46
and the baby don't sleep through the night.
41:48
But I love just that much that I'm still going to do it and see
41:53
where it takes me. I don't know.
41:54
I have no end game, but I'm just going to stick with it because
41:58
I, I love BBQ. I love hearing people's stories
42:00
and I want to motivate others to hear people like y'all story
42:05
that may be on the edge of wanting to get out there but
42:08
might be scared but when they hear y'all story it might thrust
42:11
them out there and never know what happened so.
42:14
I was like and reach out especially like Brad and I are
42:18
open books very accessible. We're the ones that run all of
42:22
the social media platforms are are work emails and everything
42:26
reach out. We'll be the ones answering you
42:28
if you if you have any kind of questions about anything just
42:33
where he and don't think you're bothering us.
42:36
That's we love it too. Like it's very.
42:39
We want to share the. Therapeutic, yeah.
42:40
It's the love of BBQ. Yep, and if you're not enjoying
42:44
it, it's no fun. Yeah.
42:47
It's definitely true 100. Percent and like we teach these
42:50
classes. We teach quite a few classes and
42:53
people are just like so Willard, like we we hand our phone
42:58
numbers out to them. Here's our phone numbers.
43:01
If you run into a problem, text us.
43:03
We will we will help you through it.
43:04
You will FaceTime you through it, whatever we got to do, and
43:08
they'll test us and every time we'll answer the phone.
43:11
Yeah. Yeah, I got numbers.
43:13
I'm just, I'm scared to even doubt Tim Sheer, grab my phone
43:16
and put his number in there. I'm like.
43:19
I'm calling this. Careful, you might get more than
43:25
you want. Loved him.
43:29
He's great. Yeah.
43:31
Yeah, he's awesome. He's awesome.
43:34
Yeah. He let me go to a NASCAR event
43:36
with him and I got the experience how they promote
43:40
themselves, hand out sauce. I helped him hand out sauce and
43:44
they were handing out sausage and steak.
43:46
The try with their BBQ sauces and stuff like that.
43:50
So it was fun. It was hard work but and I
43:53
ain't, I didn't get paid but. Which one did you go to?
43:57
The one in Atlanta where I stay, I throw them out.
44:00
If you need me, I'll be there. So I I came out and like part of
44:05
the group. That's awesome.
44:07
Because my thing is I wanted to be around just to see how they
44:10
operate, how they interact with the crowd, just to learn from
44:15
how he do and how his people do. So I like a little hard work is
44:20
not going to kill me because I'm learning more than what they
44:25
doing. So it's worth it.
44:27
Yeah, they definitely are. They're out there, they're
44:30
everywhere. They're at the trade shows,
44:32
they're interacting, they're all over the place.
44:35
So they've got their hands and just about everything.
44:38
And they're doing it really well, too.
44:39
Yeah, their new dipping sauces that are coming out that are so
44:43
good. Exactly.
44:45
And they're just all good people.
44:46
They're just good down to earth people.
44:49
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I'm like I'm an ambassador
44:53
for BBQ because of the people that I've been around and met
44:58
and I brought my wife up to show her and went to Memphis and May
45:01
and show her and they will rolled out the red carpet for
45:04
her and she's into it now. As far as so, I was like, I'm
45:11
beyond grateful because couple years ago you wouldn't have told
45:15
me that I would have be sitting here meeting everybody in the
45:19
BBQ world that I'm watching on TV and stuff.
45:21
So I was like, I'm in it for life and I haven't.
45:27
Even coached the competition. Yet.
45:31
Then it'll really be set. Yeah, I got a whole podcast just
45:36
from just walking around to coming.
45:40
He's figured out the back door to competition here.
45:43
He talks to all the pit masters. He can get their recipes.
45:46
Yeah, come on. You're around the competition.
45:49
Come on, in the trailer I tell people I don't do the podcast to
45:54
get recipes. I didn't take enough classes
45:56
that. You and you've taken some good
45:58
ones. Yeah, you've taken really good
46:00
ones. Exactly.
46:01
Let's take it to Smoke Slam in Memphis and May.
46:04
I think I saw I went to both of them and I think I saw Brad was
46:10
at Smoke Slam when I see him. I know I don't know if both of
46:13
y'all was there but. She would have been in there
46:15
somewhere. I.
46:17
Remember I. Went to both, yeah.
46:19
Because y'all were near for when you over.
46:22
To him. Yeah, yeah.
46:23
Because I remember the beer. So that was like, OK, I remember
46:26
him, but I remember Bree at the Home Depot in Memphis and May,
46:31
because she handed me my room samples, so that's how I
46:35
remember her. I was like wow.
46:40
We were playing double duty that week.
46:42
And after Home Depot, we had to go to Bass Pro.
46:44
Oh wow. And do another one.
46:47
So how did Y'all get started and doing the live fire demo?
46:49
Did they reach out to y'all or? It's through our COPAC or Old
46:55
World Spice. They've got the Barbic live
46:57
fire. Oh, the live MBB.
46:59
I thought you said Memphis and Maine.
47:00
You said live fire, right? Yeah, the live fire.
47:03
Sorry, my fault, my fault. Yeah, the live fire started.
47:06
So we partnered with Hooray Girl Company probably about two 2 1/2
47:10
years ago and they're a maker of just phenomenal Santa Maria
47:14
girls. Neither one of us had ever
47:16
cooked on a Santa Maria except for a friend's house one night.
47:20
And we posted on his Hooray grill and Hooray started liking
47:26
him like let's go after Hooray and see if they want to partner
47:29
and do some grill stuff. And they did.
47:32
They don't partner with many people at all, but they we were
47:35
their first ones that they partnered with and he put a
47:38
Santa Maria in our hand and a couple of the Hurtado smoke
47:40
boxes and we got to play it on fire and learned a whole nother
47:45
style of cooking, live fire cooking.
47:48
We probably have more fun with the live fire now than we do
47:52
smoking meat. It's fun, it's sexy, it's just
47:55
eye-catching. It's just, I love it.
47:58
Fire there, there is a flavor from fire and you get that fire
48:03
kissing that meat and caramelizing those sugars and.
48:07
But ultimately NBBQA was the one brought us into Smoke slam.
48:12
They reached out and said, hey, would y'all like to come and do
48:15
some the some of the live fire demos for us?
48:18
And so we did and did not realize the volume that we were
48:24
going to be up to doing. And then once we got there and
48:28
we're setting up, we look over at Alfagoni's spot and he has 30
48:32
people with them, and it's Brad and I.
48:35
And the owls camp they had. They look like a little ants
48:37
coming from their reefer truck, like little ants coming with new
48:41
meat. I was like, OK, this guy's
48:45
prepared. We it's just you and I, babe.
48:47
Let's go. But that, but it's, it's funny.
48:49
And you were over there, so you may have saw it.
48:52
I'm sitting there looking at Fergoni's camp and I'm like,
48:55
there's not much we can do to compare with that because that's
48:58
just a freaking circus over there.
49:00
They have so many cool things. And so that's when somebody
49:04
mentioned I was talking about, I started doing meat art.
49:07
I don't know if that's a that's our.
49:09
Animal, Yeah. So day one was an octopus and
49:14
everyone's oh, that's so cool. What are you going to do on day
49:16
2? I'm like, I can't do an octopus
49:18
in. A porkapus.
49:19
It was a porkapus. I was like, I started in my
49:22
head, I'm thinking, what can I do out of a pork loin?
49:24
I'm starting to in my head breakdown how I can just dissect
49:29
1 and I'm like, I'll do a lobster and I carved a lobster
49:33
out of one whole pork loin. Lobster, Larry the lobster.
49:37
Mississippi mud bug, that's what.
49:39
We were telling, but just. Something fun for people to come
49:42
over and take pictures of and. Yeah, it was.
49:46
Our whole point was to get people to come and look at it,
49:49
take pictures, tag us, follow us.
49:52
That's that was what it's about. Yeah, it was so much fun though.
49:56
Oh my God, we had so much fun. Oh yeah, it was.
49:58
It was jam packed over there because Memphis and Mega
50:01
wouldn't give it out any food. Like that.
50:03
Not like that. You should.
50:04
Have seen their eyes when I pulled a lit Santa Maria up on
50:07
the stage. We did.
50:09
We had to do demos every so often.
50:12
And so for our demo we were doing a Tri tip demo and they're
50:16
like, what grill are you wanting to use?
50:18
And Brad goes this one and they're like their eyes got
50:22
bigger and they're like, I don't know how the fire inspector is
50:24
going to feel about it. And we're like, we're cooking on
50:27
it here. We've got all that's going on.
50:30
So they let him, they let us bring it up there.
50:32
So we just, that was a heck of a lot of fun and then we were
50:35
going back and forth between that and the VIP area.
50:38
Did the VIP demos over there that was.
50:40
Hopefully they bring us back this next year and we've got
50:43
some ideas to to make our shows better and to make their shows
50:48
better. And we're going to bring help.
50:51
Today invite you to America role.
50:54
Are y'all going to be in America role this year?
50:57
Oh yeah. I did book a trip.
50:59
My wife let me come out there and walk around.
51:01
Yeah, we'll be in spot 450. Come find us 354-5350 No.
51:07
You're going to have me in some strange truck.
51:10
No, it's about 4:50. It's always been 450.
51:15
Don't listen to Brad. I get to me.
51:18
I get lost trying to find my way to the bedroom.
51:21
Knocking on the wrong door, right?
51:25
So we love the American Royal. It's so much fun and we do the
51:30
Pitmaster breakfast every year that we partner with Prairie
51:33
Fresh and we put on the Bloody Mary barge and they do the
51:37
breakfast side and. With Holiday.
51:38
And with holiday and 360 vodka and it's just a lot of fun.
51:42
OK OK that sounds good. I heard that through social
51:46
media. Y'all got child rubs in Ace
51:48
Hardware now? That was huge.
51:51
Yes, Sir, it was. Huge.
51:53
Yeah, the Ace picked up all six of our products nationwide.
51:56
So if you're listening, go to your local ace, tell them you
51:59
want smoking magic in there. Yeah, if you don't see it on the
52:02
shelf, ask them for it. Yeah.
52:04
So we need the people to bring that into the stores.
52:07
The stores can get them. We just need the stores to know
52:09
they can get it. Yeah the hands down in my
52:12
opinion y'all have the best labels.
52:15
I like they're so slick with the black and white.
52:17
I was like, thank you. Yeah, they're clean.
52:21
So they definitely. I like them.
52:24
We wanted to go. So we really, we wanted a
52:26
classic look. We didn't want some cartoony
52:29
stuff. And at first when we thought we
52:30
were going to get to keep our Black Magic brand, they were
52:34
trying to tell us and I'm like, green is our logo.
52:37
I'm not changing the logo. We're going to have to
52:40
compromise somewhere. But the new the logo we have
52:43
now, I love how clean and crisp it is, and it pretty much just
52:46
tells you exactly what you're getting.
52:48
Exactly. Me being a Denver Bronco fan,
52:51
that's where I got orange and blue everywhere.
52:53
Holding off, I've not been saying a thing.
52:58
All right, I got one quick question.
52:59
We will play a couple of quick games.
53:01
Bree, could you talk a little bit about best video?
53:04
I see you know y'all YouTube channel is how to turn BBQ into
53:08
a livelihood without a restaurant.
53:10
Could you just give a brief rundown of that for everybody?
53:15
Sure. So that was something we've been
53:18
asked about a lot. What are you guys doing?
53:22
How could we like, how can we get started down that path?
53:26
How can we learn more? Just I recruited a bunch of
53:30
people that do it and do it well that without the brick and
53:34
mortars and was able to do just like a question and answer panel
53:38
and felt like that was there was some really good information and
53:42
I could have gone much longer than an hour for that.
53:45
Actually, we did go longer than an hour, but I would have loved
53:48
to have gone even more in depth on some of that because as the
53:51
conversation was happening, I started to have more questions
53:55
about, OK, I need to dig deeper into that.
53:57
And, but just how you can utilize social media today, It's
54:03
not, there's so many outlets and ways to use that to, to reach a
54:09
huge audience that's really worldwide that you could not
54:13
normally reach and other and other platforms taking that
54:16
knowledge. But you have to understand how
54:19
to use each platform and each platform is, it is different and
54:22
how you interact. What goes well on TikTok may not
54:25
go well on Facebook. And they're just not the same
54:28
algorithms and they're not pulling the same people.
54:30
And just really, if you want to focus on one, just focus on one
54:34
until you get good with that. We've split I'm over Facebook
54:37
and Instagram and Brad's over TikTok.
54:39
And then we both do the YouTube. Really it's James social media,
54:45
like the guy that does all the editing for our videos.
54:47
He pretty much runs the YouTube for us because he's the one
54:51
posting the videos after he's edited them.
54:54
So just looking at it that way, looking at if you're reaching
54:57
out for partnerships or anything like that, like what do you have
55:02
to offer to the brand that you're approaching and how can
55:06
you work together to push each other?
55:11
Just don't look for a handout kind of thing.
55:13
And also thinking about like how you carry yourself across all
55:18
platforms when you're out in person, when you're online,
55:21
anything you put in writing or say on a podcast is out there.
55:25
You can never take any of that back.
55:27
So our rule is you don't talk politics, you don't talk
55:30
religion, you don't get involved in any kind of drama even.
55:34
And if you want to on social media, you don't feed into that.
55:38
Already talked about talking about your Broncos.
55:41
We're all about keep it clean and unprofessional and that's
55:45
ultimately going to speak volumes.
55:47
Be real, be who you really are. Not everything needs to be
55:51
polished and professionally edited.
55:53
Like people gravitate more towards somebody that they can
55:57
identify with. So you need to be real and
56:00
tangible to them. And that that was probably the
56:05
best. Also, like Amy Mills, even
56:07
though she has her family has the restaurant, she was able to
56:12
give really good insight on like how to structure like as far as
56:17
advertising goes and different things for your brand.
56:21
What's worth it, what's not worth it?
56:23
She said, like you can pay money to run these ads on social
56:27
media, but she said you really need to be looking at what are
56:30
you getting out of it and is it worth it?
56:33
Are you just throwing money away and it's not really working?
56:36
And so she came from a very more of a business minded like
56:41
advertisement background with with her questions.
56:44
A lot of her questions were that.
56:46
And then we brought in like our local Kansas City.
56:50
We had Megan day with my finger BBQ.
56:53
She was talking about like what all did they do to push their
56:57
brands? And we had, I asked Miss Misty
57:00
Banchero, the Seattle butcher wife, to come in because she
57:04
does social media extremely well and is so responsive to
57:09
everyone. And I just, I love to pick her
57:12
brain. I still talk to her quite often
57:15
about, hey, what do you think about this?
57:16
What do you think about that? How to go in and like people's
57:21
post and then wait a little bit, even though it's hard, and then
57:23
go back and comment to their comments, reply back to them at
57:28
a different stage, because then that pushes your algorithm into
57:32
a different time period, too. It's just, yeah, it.
57:35
Yeah. She had a lot of good tips in
57:37
that interview as well. But that was when KCBS asked me
57:42
to host a panel and I was tasked to come up with something I
57:47
thought would be useful. It's questions Brad and I get
57:50
asked all the time. Or how do I boost my social
57:53
media? We've also done a little short,
57:56
I don't know, not really a class, but like the talking
57:58
question answer session at one of the local teams winter
58:04
gathering that he was doing for all his sponsored teams.
58:07
He asked us to come in and speak.
58:09
We were one of a handful of people that came in and, and
58:12
that was what they asked us to talk on.
58:14
It was all around social media and social media presence and
58:17
how do you build your brand that way?
58:19
And so that's the where it just took off with the KCBS panel
58:25
idea when they approached the evening.
58:28
Yeah, it was excellent. I'm gonna have to talk to you
58:31
when I get to America, Royal. And another one, Another good
58:35
one to watch is Rod Gray. I don't know where it's posted
58:39
at. Yeah, it's if you look up it's
58:42
it was him as Pellet Envy talking about partnerships and
58:48
not sponsorships and how like how to break it down.
58:52
Show them your total following your reach.
58:55
Like how much do you post and how many impressions if their
58:59
brands on your trailer, do you think because of how much
59:02
traveling you're doing that that will be seen?
59:05
It was really a lot. And like he would break it down
59:09
and do for anybody that he partnered with.
59:11
I believe he said it was on monthly.
59:13
He would break down all these statistics and these numbers and
59:17
make sure to provide that to the people he was partnered with so
59:21
that they knew what they were getting out of it and that he
59:25
always stayed in their forefront of their mind.
59:29
So that next year, whenever it was time to renew again, they'll
59:32
be like, yeah, we want to do that with him because he gave us
59:35
a lot of bang for our buck kind of thing.
59:37
And we got this many impressions.
59:39
And look how much it grew from January to December or whatever.
59:42
And you could really see growth that way.
59:45
But if you don't ever show them those kinds of numbers, they
59:49
don't have any way to to see that.
59:52
OK, that sounds good. I'm going to get with you.
59:54
That was for me. So that'll be a greedy on that
59:59
one. Well, look it up.
1:00:01
Like you seriously, if you, yeah, Rod Gray's, I think it's
1:00:05
partnership podcast or something that he did.
1:00:08
And it was like it was really good.
1:00:10
It's one of the first ones we listened to.
1:00:12
OK, OK, yeah, I'll be talking to you at American Royal because I
1:00:15
eventually I'm gonna have to get out there into the partnership
1:00:18
thing, but. You need to do a podcast from
1:00:21
the Royal. It's totally.
1:00:23
Good, yeah. We can host it out of the
1:00:25
Smoking Magic headquarters. Alright, no problem with that.
1:00:28
You're probably coming through. And we'll bring you some people.
1:00:32
Yeah, we got all kinds of people over there.
1:00:35
Hey, I appreciate that. All right, I'm going to play 2
1:00:38
quick games to get you out of here.
1:00:40
First up, let's do Brad on the first game.
1:00:43
College basketball had the tournament bracket, so I made a
1:00:45
bracket of 16 meats that you cook on the grill with.
1:00:48
Just pick whatever 1 you choose to eat.
1:00:50
First match up hot dog versus smoked Bologna.
1:00:55
Oh hot dog all day long. Wow, all right.
1:00:59
Smoked ham versus hamburger. Hamburger.
1:01:03
All right, beef ribs versus lamb.
1:01:06
Beef ribs all. Right next match up, smoked
1:01:11
Turkey versus steak. Oh, I might go towards Turkey.
1:01:20
OK. That's upset brisket versus
1:01:24
beef, port ribs, brisket versus port ribs.
1:01:29
I'm a lean towards the brisket on that.
1:01:33
I know I'm throwing you off because I picked a Turkey.
1:01:35
Picked a poultry? Smoked.
1:01:39
I love a good smoked Turkey. Smoked chicken versus burnt
1:01:41
ends. OK, I'm I'm upset you again.
1:01:46
I'm going to go chicken. All right, pork chops versus BBQ
1:01:51
shrimp going. With the swimmers strand.
1:02:02
I've gotten every one of them but the Turkey right in my head.
1:02:05
The Turkey threw me. Sausage versus pork belly.
1:02:10
Sausage all. Right, hot dog versus hamburger.
1:02:17
Oh, I'm. Probably going hamburger.
1:02:19
I was going to say yeah all. Right beef real versus Turkey.
1:02:23
Beef ribs. Come on.
1:02:25
All right. Brisket versus chicken.
1:02:28
Brisket. He's nearing this down.
1:02:31
All right. It's a bracket.
1:02:32
Shrimp versus sausage. Probably still going to stick
1:02:35
with shrimp. Wow, five O 4 hamburger versus
1:02:40
beef ribs. Damn it, I'm going to beef rib.
1:02:46
So good though. All right, brisket versus
1:02:49
shrimp. Brisket and beef rib is the last
1:02:54
one. All right, three, your game is
1:02:58
the BBQ edition of Would you Rather?
1:03:02
OK, all right, all right, Question one.
1:03:04
Would you rather only cook with charcoal or only cook with wood?
1:03:09
Only cook with charcoal. All right.
1:03:12
Would you rather win a rib competition or a brisket
1:03:15
competition? Brisket hands down.
1:03:18
All right, would you rather never eat pulled pork again, or
1:03:21
never eat burnt ends again? I could probably go without
1:03:26
eating burnt ends again. Would you rather cook on a stick
1:03:29
burner or a pellet grill for the rest of your life?
1:03:33
Stick burner. Yeah, I was like, that's an easy
1:03:35
question. Would you rather?
1:03:38
Would you rather always have perfect smoke flavor but dry
1:03:41
meat or juicy meat with no smoke flavor?
1:03:45
Juicy meat, no smoke flavor. All right.
1:03:49
Would you rather spend the day with Aaron Franklin or Myron
1:03:52
Mixon? Marin Megson.
1:03:57
All right, would you rather have unlimited free rubs or unlimited
1:04:01
free sauces? Unlimited rubs.
1:04:07
All right, would you rather only cook chicken wings or only cook
1:04:11
pork ribs for every event? Oh, chicken wings.
1:04:17
Yeah, right. Would you rather have your BBQ
1:04:19
judge by family or friends or by KCBS judges?
1:04:24
Family and friends all day long. A lot of them are KCBS judges
1:04:31
but that's OK. Right.
1:04:34
Would you rather eat BBQ with no sides, or sides with no BBQ?
1:04:39
Oh, I'm a sides gal. I love BBQ.
1:04:43
I love BBQ. All right, would you rather only
1:04:48
use sweet BBQ sauce or only use sauce with vinegar based sauce
1:04:52
forever? Probably the vinegar base.
1:04:56
I don't like sweet BBQ sauce. All right, would you have a
1:05:01
Would you rather have a pit never run out of fuel or your
1:05:04
cooler never run out of beer? Cooler never run out of beer.
1:05:10
Magic cooler. Take that to Shark Tank.
1:05:16
The magic cooler? That's right.
1:05:19
The smoking magic cooler. You just think they're.
1:05:23
Smoker that never runs out of fuel or cooler.
1:05:26
That's a smoking magic cooler. Yes, mix them together.
1:05:31
OK, sorry. Would you rather have fall off
1:05:34
the bone ribs every time or the perfect smoke ring every time?
1:05:40
Fall off the bone ribs. Alright, and would you rather
1:05:44
cook a comp with a tiny budget with perfect skills or a huge
1:05:48
budget with average skills? That was a good question.
1:05:54
I was going to say a tiny budget with perfect skills that.
1:05:59
Was a good question. Who are?
1:06:01
You inviting that? Tiny budget.
1:06:05
We have the. Tiny budget but he's got the
1:06:07
perfect skills. That's what my rather would be
1:06:09
that we would have that. All right, would you rather over
1:06:13
smoke brisket or under seasoned ribs?
1:06:19
Probably under seasoned ribs because over smoked brisket.
1:06:22
Look, I don't know. I don't like it.
1:06:25
It's harsh. All right.
1:06:27
Would you rather cook with a $200 offset forever for a
1:06:31
$10,000 trailer rig you're going to use once?
1:06:35
Is it just her using it or? If I've only okay I guess I'll
1:06:44
go with the $200 one. I'm worried about the holding
1:06:47
up. I'd rather have a little bit
1:06:49
more expensive that I use all the time, but if I'm only going
1:06:52
to use the comp one once. You'll be going back to the
1:06:55
offset after the rig. Yeah.
1:06:56
All right. Would you rather eat cold
1:06:58
leftover brisket or freshly grilled hot dogs?
1:07:03
Leftover brisket all. Right.
1:07:05
Would you rather have perfect weather every cooked but bad
1:07:08
meat, or grape meat but bad weather every cooker?
1:07:14
Great meet. We'll deal with the elements.
1:07:19
All right, would you rather win a grand championship once or
1:07:22
place top ten in every contest for life?
1:07:29
Yeah, I would probably have to say I guess top ten food at
1:07:32
least stay relevant. There's another crazy one.
1:07:36
Would you rather only cook for paying customers or only for
1:07:39
family and friends? Family and friends.
1:07:43
All right, would you rather would you rather your BBQ be
1:07:46
known for legendary flavor or legendary presentation?
1:07:51
Legendary flavor, Yeah, doesn't give me.
1:07:55
Yeah. All right, guys, y'all therapy
1:07:57
session is over. And those are.
1:08:03
Some tough, like close to the heart questions.
1:08:06
I got to tell you that that was probably one of the most fun
1:08:10
like segments we've had though. That was fun, Yeah.
1:08:12
I liked the game that was. Fun, I'm trying to mix it up all
1:08:16
right, if y'all want to promote you websites and everything that
1:08:19
y'all doing cuz y'all everywhere and do everything.
1:08:24
Sure, if you're ever wondering what we're up to, you can look
1:08:28
us up on all of the social media platforms.
1:08:31
So Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, it is at Smoke the
1:08:36
letter N Magic for all of those. We also have a website which is
1:08:41
smoke in magicbbq.com and actually it's smoke and
1:08:48
magic.com. And then we also have links to
1:08:51
like classes, events, different things we're doing on that page
1:08:54
as well. Sign up for e-mail list on our
1:08:57
website and we'll send out when we're doing anything new or
1:09:01
places you can find us, or if we're running any specials or
1:09:05
product releases. Three weeks in three weeks.
1:09:08
We have a bourbon and BBQ experience class coming up.
1:09:11
Yeah. So yeah, it would be a lot of
1:09:12
fun. But yeah, you can reach out any
1:09:15
of those platforms to us so and our YouTube channel.
1:09:18
Oh my gosh, I forgot. Yeah, yeah, we YouTube.
1:09:21
Channel keep subscribing. It's smoke and magic as well.
1:09:25
It's smoke and Magic 9100 for some reason.
1:09:28
It'll be Brad nice picture up there.
1:09:29
So just you could type in smoke and magic and it'll pull us for
1:09:34
YouTube. But.
1:09:35
We got to train people to watch and subscribe.
1:09:39
Yeah, I think that's one of the best.
1:09:42
That's one of the best catch phrases.
1:09:44
Exactly, exactly. But nobody do it.
1:09:50
Everybody they give you thumbs up and all this other stuff on
1:09:53
the other social media but YouTube.
1:09:58
But I definitely appreciate y'all coming on and the
1:10:01
interview is way better than it would have been probably a
1:10:04
couple months ago. So I hope I entertained y'all
1:10:09
enough. But definitely I'm coming to
1:10:12
find y'all at American Royal, so I look forward to meeting y'all.
1:10:17
And on that note, we see everybody next episode.
1:10:20
We just wrapped up another session of BBQ therapy.
1:10:23
Remember, stay patient, stay passionate, and keep that fire
1:10:27
burning. Hit subscribe, share the good
1:10:29
smoke, and pay the secretary on your way out.
1:10:32
Have a blessed day.