Since gracing our cover back in March, the members of the Charleston Brown Water Society have been a bit quiet. Or at least that’s what we thought until we got intel today that since their CP debut the whiskey-lovers have been secretly plotting a barbecue and bourbon bonanza. On Sun. July 13 the club will host the 2014 SC-TX BBQ Invitational, and everyone is invited.
“We’re pretty excited about it,” says CP food critic and CBWS member Eric Doksa. And for good reason. Since forming, Doksa says the group has wanted to offer public events in addition to their private club meetings. They held one such function during Charleston Wine + Food Festival, but this is something else entirely. The newly named nonprofit has managed to convince John Lewis of La Barbecue in Austin, Texas to join Hemingway’s Rodney Scott of Scott’s Bar-B-Que at Holy City Brewing for a South Carolina pulled pork and Texas beef brisket chow-down.
So where does the bourbon come in? Farmer Redmond of Six & Twenty Distillery in Piedmont, S.C. has offered to bring the spirits for the occasion. “We’ll be pouring our brown waters. We’ll have our Six & Twenty Blue and our Old Money,”says Redmond. “I imagine the reason barbecue and bourbon go so well together is they’re about as American as you can get unless you were finishing up with an apple pie.”
There may not be any pie at the event, but there will be another classic — bread and butter pickles.
“We’ve got BJ Dennis doing a bunch of sides,” says Doksa. Dennis, a Gullah/Geechee cuisine king, plans to dish up the pickles as well as a Lowcountry potato and shrimp salad and summer pea salad.
“Legare Farms donated a hog. And Sysco has given us a generous amount of certified prime brisket,” adds Doksa. “Lewis will also be doing beef ribs. You don’t see that in the Carolinas too often.” It’s important to note that the Austin American-Statesman just named La Barbecue the best barbecue joint in Austin, usurping famed Franklin Barbecue (known for its two-and-a-half hour waits). “His brisket is the best I’ve ever had,” says Doksa who went on an Austin-barbecue-eat-a-thon last year.
“I’m going to do beef brisket — both a lean and fatty brisket,” says Lewis. “I’m gonna do a beef plate of shortribs and those weigh about two pounds, and I’m gonna be making Texas hot guts. That’s what we call sausage.” But it won’t all be work for the barbecue impresario. Lewis admits he’s never even tasted whole hog. “I hear Rodney Scott’s the man for it,” he says. We’d have to agree.
In addition to all the meat you can eat, the SC-TX BBQ Invitational will also include Holy City beers and music from the Blue Stone Ramblers. “We also realized it’s the World Cup finals that day,” says Dan Latimer, operations executive for the Neighborhood Dining Group (Husk, McCrady’s, No. 5 Faber) and CBWS member. “So we moved the event up to 3 p.m. and will have a big screen showing the game.”
The catch? There are only 250 of the $50 tickets available for this chance to see two of the great meat masters in action together. To buy tickets, you’re gonna want to click here right now.
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