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the Barbecue issue

Fire & Reign interview by Tim Acosta, Rouses Marketing Director

in every pork category. “We’ve also won beef and poultry categories. But we want to be the first team in the history of Memphis in May to win every category.” The Super Bowl of Swine features nearly 250 teams from across America and several different countries. The competition takes place in a mile-long tent city at Tom Lee Park on the banks of the Mississippi River. Over the course of three days, more than 100,000 fans attend, smell the smoke, and watch the nation’s barbecue legends practice their craft. The competition features two rounds of judging: blind and on-site.The Shed’s booth, The Rolling Joint , is a judge’s favorite. It features a 1954 Jeep tricked out as a smoker, and the Robo Hog, a vertical pig cooker. Of course,winning is nice—and can be pretty lucrative at the championship level — but for Orrison,the best part of any cooking contest is mixing and mingling with fellow competitors and other pork geeks: “Memphis in May is an epic party.”There’s a lot of drinking, a lot of schmoozing, and a lot of oohing and aahing over Webers and Fatboys.

E very year as springtime rolls around, the barbecue world turns its eyes to western West Tennessee for one of the country’s biggest competitions — Memphis in May. Officially titled the “World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest,”the event is part of a larger,month- long international festival that celebrates the legendary Beale Street music scene, the city’s storied history and, of course, a good old- fashioned smoked meat smackdown. On the third weekend in May, ambitious pit masters and barbecue teams head to Tom Lee Park for a massive celebration of meat, music and the chance to be this year’s world

champion. Now in its 40th year, Memphis in May ranks as one of the barbecue circuit’s crown jewels. Brad Orrison, an owner at The Shed in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, knows Memphis in May well — as a fan, competitor and champion. His team from the ramshackle “Barbeque & Blues Joint” on the Mississippi Gulf Coast compete every year with plenty of success and “run the table” aspirations. “We’ve won Whole Hog twice, and took the Grand Championship in 2015,” he notes. The Shed’s team has also placed first

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MY ROUSES EVERYDAY MARCH | APRIL 2017