No Offense To Woodstock But It's Only A Matter Of Time Before BBQ Festivals Get Bigger Than It Could Have Ever Imagined
This past weekend I made the trip down to Charleston for the inaugural Holy Smokes BBQ Festival. You might recognize the fella slicing up a few sausages off to the side in the video above. It was just a quick one-day event to support Hogs For The Cause, which is another bbq event which raises money to help families with children battling cancer. But after what went down. this past weekend in Charleston, it's only a matter of time before this thing gets on Woodstock level. It was a murderer's row of BBQ royalty.
We're talking legends of whole hog barbecue like Sam Jones and Rodney Scott. It doesn't take anything fancy. Some hot coals, a shovel, and a hog. But if it was that easy, everybody would be able to make a sandwich that'll literally change your life like that one from Sam Jones. And there aren't many of them out there.
Legends like Chris Lilly from Big Bob Gibson's in Decatur who have proven that the best sauce in bbq is actually white.
Some rockstars out of Texas like the guys from Truth BBQ who just got the 3rd spot on the Texas Monthly Top 50 list of bbq joints in Teax. Nottabigdeal
LORDY! How are you supposed to look at that slice of brisket and be able to just go about the rest of your day? You can't. The type of thing that'll make you feel certain things down below.
And speaking of weenies, Evan LeRoy from LeRoy & Lewis BBQ knows that the key to being named a top 5 bbq joint in Texas is to make sure that the weens are always clean.
Is there anything more arousing that a bbq pit full of sausage? Rhetorical question because the answer is unequivocally no.
And it just so happens that the best sausage that you can get literally anywhere is from HooDoo Brown in Connecticut. So all the losers in the comment section who say you can't get great barbecue north of the Mason Dixon Line clearly have no idea what they're talking about. They also clearly never had a slice of some smoked NY strip from Billy Durney from Hometown BBQ in New York.
Elliott Moss in Asheville. Fox Bros from Atlanta. Feges BBQ in Texas. Blue Oak BBQ in New Orleans. Martin's BBQ in Tennessee. And then obviously all the other Charleston guys who threw the event together like Swig n' Swine and Home Team BBQ. Long story short, the lineup was insane. As far as barbecue goes, it might be a better lineup that Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Janis Joplin and the Dead.
I guess the moral of this story is that if you've never been to a barbecue festival before and the opportunity presents itself to you to go to one--do it. Unless you're some crazy PETA person, it is quite literally impossible to have a bad time as you're stuffing your face full of some of the best bbq you'll ever taste. So not only are you having one of the best days of your life, but you're walking around in a sea of thousands of other people also having one of the best days of their lives. Which make the vibes, and the smells, immaculate.
Great food, better people, perfect cause. If you're into that sort of thing, I'd keep your schedule open for the Holy Smokes BBQ Festival next year.