This was just one entry in the cook's choice category! There were three more to judge, oof.
Last weekend, I returned to one of my favorite places on the planet: Lynchburg, Tenn. I was there to judge at the Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitational Barbecue for the [redacted] year. The reason I’m not admitting how many years I’ve judged at “The Jack” is because I know my doctor occasionally reads this column, and I don’t want him to call me in for midyear tests just because my bloodstream is currently the consistency of popcorn butter.
Jack Daniel’s Distillery has put on this major barbecue competition for more than 30 years now, and more than 40,000 people annually make the pilgrimage to “the Hollow” to see which team among 91 U.S. and international entrants is crowned the champion. There are two ways to earn a chance at an invite to the prominent contest. First, a domestic team has to have won a state championship with at least 25 teams competing. Another option is to win a competition with at least 50 teams competing in the four official Kansas City BBQ Society categories: pork ribs, pork butt, chicken and beef brisket.
Just getting to The Jack is a big deal, but actually winning it earns a team $25,000 and an automatic invitation to defend the title next year. Only one team has ever repeated as Grand Champion: Heavy Smoke BBQ out of Missouri in 2022 and 2023. The good news is that the competitors couldn’t have asked for better cooking conditions. Last year was cold, windy and rainy, and judges could tell that even the most talented pitmasters had trouble controlling their cook temps during overnight cooks. This year’s weather was ideal, and it certainly showed in the results as the barbecue was absolutely top-notch!
It also showed in the crowd size, as the bleachers surrounding the judging tent were overflowing with more spectators than I can remember in my hmmph-teen years of judging. Looking through the fence at the horde of barbecue aficionados waiting for a few samples, I felt like a character in The Walking Dead trapped in an abandoned mall while hungry walkers waited for me to try to escape. Fortunately, the crowd was much more polite than that.
Organizers made the wise choice to move some of the retail food truck offerings closer to the actual competing teams and judging tent so visitors could enjoy food and drink without having to walk to Wiseman Park from the town square, and I feel that spectators really appreciated that. (Especially when they needed a bottle of water after spending some time out in the sun-drenched bleachers.)
Our table of judges, hard at work
My particular judging table had quite the Nashville bent — half of my table of six judges hailed from Music City. I was honored to be joined by Hattie B’s culinary director Brian Morris and the winner of Season 3 of the Netflix series Barbecue Showdown Shaticka Robinson from Coley’s Juke Junt. I guarantee that no other table of judges had more fun or laughed harder than we did in the short periods between categories when we didn’t have to be deadly serious about judging! Other tables include fellow Nashvillians like meteorology experts Leland Statom and Henry Rothenberg as well as Nick Beres, who just won Best Reporter in the Best of Nashville readers' poll this year.
In the end, after judging the four big categories plus three ancillary categories of sauce, cook's choice and dessert, we were all miserably fat and happy. The winning team hailed from Jacksonville, Fla. Kings BBQ beat out second-place Boggs Hog BBQ by a score of 710.8684 to 704.5484. Considering the next 16 places were separated by less than 10 points, that’s a pretty resounding win for the cooks from Jacksonville.
In a rare but excellent development, several international teams actually placed in the top three of different categories, earning themselves a trip to the stage for recognition plus a big check. Bunch of Swines from Great Britain won third place in brisket, Grillas in the Mist from Australia took second in ribs, and Cook Cartel out of New Zealand finished third in sauce and actually won the dessert category. Even more noteworthy, SmellaQue from Canada finished sixth overall in the entire competition with Grillas in the Mist ending up in eighth place.
So congratulations to all the winners and everyone who competed. If you’ve never visited The Jack, mark your calendar for Oct. 10, 2026, because that should be the date for next year. God willing and if the Lipitor keeps working, I’ll meet you in the Hollow!
