Pitmaster Christie Vanover just got back from judging the 2024 Jack Daniel’s World Championships. Find out what she thought about the entries she judged and what trends she saw.
Table of Contents
All right, guys, one more week of me talking about the Jack and then we’ll move on to some Thanksgiving turkey tips next week. But I’ve got to give you guys a wrap up of everything that happened in Lynchburg, Tennessee, this past weekend for the 35th annual Jack Daniel’s World Invitational Barbecue Championships.
It was another amazing weekend. It actually didn’t rain, which is amazing for the Jack because it usually rains every year, but it was actually hot, sunny, beautiful.
The crowds turned out because the weather was so fantastic. I got there on Wednesday and I was there through Sunday, so I’m going to walk you through all of the fun and excitement that I had while I was down in the hollow.
Champion’s Dinner
So starting on Wednesday, I flew into Nashville, drove down to Lynchburg, and immediately headed to Miss Mary Bobo’s.
That’s where they held the annual Champion’s Dinner. This is the third year that they’ve held this dinner. The first year it was Tuffy Stone, and then it was Brad Leighninger from Gettin’ Basted.
This year’s champion pitmaster chef was Chris Schafer from Heavy Smoke. He won the Jack a couple years ago, and he cooked up a phenomenal meal.
He smoked up some prime rib that was Certified Angus Beef. He also smoked up a pork belly and cooked it kind of like a brisket. So it was nice thick slices. That was Compart Duroc pork. It was fantastic.
Along with all of that, we had all of the sides from Miss Mary Bobos. That fried okra. If you haven’t ever had it, your life is not complete. You’ve got to go to Miss Mary Bobo’s and get that fried okra. It’s so good.
But going to Miss Mary Bobo’s is awesome because you basically sit in a room with ten different people. Some of them you may know, some of them you may not. And you just sit around the table and break bread before the fun, exciting weekend.
So that’s how I started things off. We had a little cocktail hour to start, and then we had that wonderful meal at Miss Mary Bobo’s.
Book Sales on the Square
The next morning, Thursday. I had so many butterflies. I was so excited because that’s when I got to sell my rubs and my cookbook for the first time at the general store right there in Lynchburg, on the square.
The turnout was amazing. The best part is that I got to talk to so many people from around the world. Some of them were cooks, some of them were judges, but a lot of them were just people coming to the distillery to tour Jack Daniels.
There are so many people who just come to Lynchburg specifically for the distillery tour, and some of them didn’t even know it was barbecue weekend.
But once they got there, they got excited to see everything that was going on with barbecue. And I’m proud to say that I sold out of my cookbooks, and I sold almost all of my rubs on that first day.
I don’t know how they did the rest of the weekend. They might be sold out by now, I’m not sure, but it was a big success.
They were received really well. People really enjoyed the flavor profiles and that means so much to me.
You can pick up my cookbook on Amazon. It’s already an Amazon bestseller. It’s available in softcover and hardcover.
Also, my rubs have been shipped to the fulfillment center, so they’re going to be online so, so soon. I know I keep saying that. This process is really lengthy, but once they are available, I will let you guys know.
I will share all the links so that you guys can go ahead and start ordering those and use them for your competition cooking or your backyard barbecue.
Shaken and Stirred Contest
First thing Friday morning, I headed back to the distillery for the shaken and stirred cocktail contest. Team Girls Can Grill won that championship in 2022 and then B Mackin’ won it last year, so I was excited to see what the different teams were going to mix up.
I believe there were seven teams that mixed up cocktails. A couple of them did, like a margarita style, where they did, like, citrus juice and syrup mixed with some whiskey.
There were also a couple different old fashioneds, and ultimately it was an old fashioned, that one. It was created by Nathan at 333 BBQ out of Canada.
I watched as he prepared it, and not only was he great at telling the story of what he created, he talked about the details of the recipe.
He created a simple syrup with a reduction of cherry and Dr. Pepper, and just the syrup alone was amazing. But then he continued that cherry profile throughout the cocktail. He used cherry wood and added some cherry wood smoke.
He also added a cherry inside of his old fashioned. It was just it was just very well presented.
I could tell between his charisma, the way he was talking to the judges and his knowledge of the cocktail he was creating, that as long as his cocktail tasted great, he had a really good chance at winning.
And because I was in the judging area after the three judges tasted the cocktail, I had the pleasure of taking a sip of that cocktail and it was phenomenal.
So I was really excited to see when 333 BBQ got their championship call and they are the 2024 Shaken and Stirred champions.
After that contest, unfortunately I missed the I Know Jack contest, which is really fun because that’s when you get those mystery boxes and people have to whip up meals.
There were five teams who competed in that, and the Shed took home Grand champion for that. I’m so sorry I missed it. If you follow Brooke on Instagram, she did share some videos. So you can go back and you can watch and see what they turned in. But it was really exciting to see them get that first place call as well.
Barbecue Hill
After all of that, it was time for me to head up to Barbecue Hill, because that’s where I was preparing a nice little beef sample for all of the cooks and judges and VIPs who were coming up for the celebration.
So we got up to the hill early, got everything situated and set up. And as I mentioned in my previous podcast, we did smoked beef pastrami ribs with a pickled red onion topping, along with a brown butter honey mustard sauce and some dill pickle chips.
And they were a hit. The line was insane. The amount of people who came up to BBQ Hill, I don’t know, I think they’re estimating like 700, which is a couple hundred more than usual.
The lines were so long, but I think it’s because the weather was just phenomenal. The sunset is always gorgeous out there, and I had such a fun time because that gave me even more of an opportunity to meet all of the teams, different judges and just talk to people, introduce my rubs again.
I was really pleased with the feedback I got. Everybody really seemed to enjoy those smoked pastrami beef ribs. We use Certified Angus Beef, so of course there’s quality there. I was just told that everybody thought it was a really good bite. So that means a lot.
Competition Day
And of course Saturday was the big day. That is competition day. So I did a little bit of walking around before the competition.
The Hunsaker drums that were brought this year were gorgeous. So Hunsaker is the type of barrel cooker that I cook on, and every year for the past few years, they’ve created custom Jack Daniel’s World Championship drums and they donate those to the international teams who fly in from abroad so that they can have something to cook on.
Because of course, you can’t really travel with your smokers all the way from Australia or Belgium, so they let those teams use those drums for the competition and then they sell them afterwards.
I picked up a drum, I think it was in 2022 and it was matte black with some whiskey like metallic paint on the smokestack and some other areas. And then of course, the Jack Daniels logo on the logo plate.
Well, this year’s drums were actually that metallic whiskey color for the whole barrel, the whole drum. And they were just so stunning. If I would have driven to Lynchburg, I would have brought another one home. That’s how beautiful they were. They had ten, I think, and I’m pretty sure they’re all sold out.
If not, visit the Hunsaker Facebook group and go in there and see if there’s any more available. And you could pick one up, because I believe whatever was left over, they brought back to their location in Missouri.
Judges Tent
After walking around, it was time to head into the judges tent. I will say the judges tent was a little bit different this year.
A lot of the barbecue Hall of Famers or other big names in barbecue weren’t in the tent this year for various reasons. I think Chris Lilly had some other obligations. Dr. BBQ and Leanne, they were down in Florida and obviously the hurricane just happened, so they didn’t make it up.
So when that came around and they asked people to raise their hands for how many people have been judging the Jack for the first time, I would say was probably 25 to 30% of the judges were judging the Jack for the first time.
Now, that doesn’t mean they were first time judges. It just meant that was their first time at the Jack. So I don’t really know the proportion of how many of the judges were first timers versus that. But it was definitely kind of a mix of people in there compared to some of the years that I’ve judged before.
When you’re in the judges tent, it’s pretty fun. We all get a signature apron from that year’s Jack. Everybody goes around and they autograph each other’s aprons, just like the teams go around and have everybody sign their barrel heads. And then we get situated at our table.
They remind us of the rules. They play the standard KCBS recording, and then we all raise our hand and do the oath, you know, in the name of barbecue that we’re going to give our best, most honest feedback for the results that we give.
Sauce
First category up was sauce. And I loved this category because people changed things up. I’ve been talking about wanting to see change in barbecue for so long, so all of a sudden we get a honey mustard sauce and I was stoked.
I was like, yeah, somebody is breaking barriers. They’re trying something new. So we had one that was kind of like a sweet chili sauce, almost with barbecue overtones.
And then the rest were pretty much red Kansas City style. And then we had the honey mustard.
The only thing with that honey mustard sauce, it was just lacking a little bit of flavor and balance. I feel like it needed to maybe be cooked down just a little bit longer, but kudos to whatever team turned that in. I appreciate that you are mixing things up.
Congratulations also to Black Forest Barbecue out of Germany. They took home the first place trophy for sauce and I was so excited.
As soon as they won and they were walking off the stage, they turned to me and thanked me for the BBQ Tips podcast about sauce. They said that that helped them really fine tune exactly what they were going to turn in.
So that means a lot that my podcasts are making a difference. Thank you guys so much. I actually heard that a lot this weekend, especially for the new teams who’ve never cooked the Jack.
They were really appreciative of the information that I was sharing, and they felt that it kind of helped them be on more level of an even playing field. So thank you guys, and congrats to Black Forest Barbecue.
Chef’s Choice
Moving on to Chef’s Choice. The entries this year were crazy. In years past there were no restrictions on size of platter. Then they kind of got too big. So they the Jack put the restrictions down to like 18″ by 18″ platters.
It’s kind of hard to fit six or seven portions on that size platter. So they removed that restriction again. It just had to be carried by one person. But some of these platters were enormous.
Like one was as big as like my wingspan. And there’s no way I could have lifted it because it also had a pole with a hanging tomahawk on it. And then it had like, I think a surf and turf kind of mixed in.
I later found out that that was the Shed entry. They always go big or go home and congratulations to them because they actually took home second place. They tied for first place, they had a perfect 180.
Both first and second had the exact same scores from all six judges, but they walked home with second place, first place was Bill Gillespie of Smoking Hoggz and he turned in chili dogs.
So it’s crazy because you think surf and turf and all of these elaborate dishes. And he turned in what looked to be simple chili dogs.
I’m sure they tasted phenomenal. He used Snake River Farm’s hot dogs, I believe he posted online. So the flavors had to be there because he got a 180.
But it’s just so fascinating to see that you can go with comfort food, or you can go with like high end, expensive, fancy food and even comfort food can take it home so you don’t have to do that surf and turf and lobster and spend $1,000 on your entry.
You can do something that’s a little more simple, a little more familiar, and the judges are going to still love it.
So congrats to you, Bill, on pulling off a chili dog victory at the Jack.
Four Meats
All right. Next up are the big four meats. Chicken, ribs, pork and brisket. I’m going to talk to you about the entries that I saw at my table. And just kind of give you my perspective of what I was judging.
Chicken
So first up was chicken. We had five turn ins with thigh meat as their dark meat and one with legs, and that leg box was beautiful the way that it was laid out. It was it was just stunning. I had not seen a box like that before, and it looked beautiful.
In the white meat category, because with the Jack you have to turn in dark and white meat, we had five that had wings, and then one of the thighs had breast meat.
And I will say we did have a mix. So as I talked about before with chicken you have to turn in seven pieces. You can choose to do six white and six dark, or you can do like six dark and one white. And we had several who only turned in 1 or 2 wings, or 1 or 2 pieces of breast meat, as opposed to six and six.
And I’m proud to say that I believe the judges gave honest opinions about what meat they tasted. I don’t think anybody docked down for saying, oh, well, that judge got a wing. I didn’t get a wing. I didn’t hear any of my judges talk like that at my table. So I appreciate that because that’s the way it’s supposed to be judged.
You’re supposed to just be judged with what you’re presented. So teams definitely took a risk by not providing meat to every judge.
But then they also maybe made a calculated decision because maybe that wing or maybe that piece of breast meat wasn’t quite on top. So they really wanted the judges to focus on their dark meat. Whatever your strategy, congrats!
The chicken at our table, for the most part was really, really good. We had one box that was had a little bit of too smokiness of a flavor.
Something happened with the pit there, I could tell, but most of the bites were fantastic with chicken.
Ribs
Moving on to ribs. The ribs boxes were even better. Like all of them tender to a tee.
Not over, not under flavor. Profiles were so balanced, but they varied. So like I got one that was a little more peachy. One that was a little bit more like Apple, one that was more cherry, one that was like Chipotle. So there was a nice variety of flavor profiles, but the cook on all but one were like, spot on.
I believe I probably gave the most nines in the rib category, so kudos to all of those cooks who turned in some phenomenal ribs.
Pork
When it came to pork, it was definitely a money muscle game there. Every single box had money muscle in it.
Of course, some boxes had only money muscle. I think we had two, maybe three that had some pulled strands in there. One of them did have chunks, but the chunks were definitely a money muscle that was just cut up into chunk pieces.
It wasn’t like chunks from the horn or another part of the pork itself. But the money muscles were all good. They were all really tender, not mushy, not, you know, not over, not under.
And again, a good variety of flavor profiles that were balanced.
One word of caution on pork.
I was on the verge of questioning whether or not one of the entries needed to be DQed. As a reminder, KCBS rules say that you can have chunks in your sauce, but they have to be less than an eighth of an inch, and there was one that was turned in.
It had pulled meat, and it had some sort of sauce that looked like it had chunks of fruit in it. I want to say pineapple, maybe like a marmalade something. But the chunks were pretty big.
I don’t know that they were over an eighth of an inch big. I’m not going to like pull up my ruler. But I will say that it was close to being a DQ.
They were that large. I’m not going to DQ somebody at the Jack over something like that. So I just let it be. And I tasted the meat and the meat tasted phenomenal, and I judged it based on that. I didn’t judge it based on chunk sizes.
But just a word of caution to remember that rule. Be cautious. If you have a sauce that’s really chunky, maybe strain it.
Or at least look at your turn in box. And if you see some pieces like that that are just a little bit too chunky, get some tweezers or something and just pull them off of there so you don’t risk that DQ.
Other than that though, again, pork boxes were really good at my table.
Brisket
Moving on to brisket. This is my favorite category, but it’s also my least favorite category. I love smoked brisket. I think we all pretty much love a smoked brisket. I don’t love competition brisket.
I think five of our briskets, at least five, were cooked hot and fast and that’s fine. I cook hot and fast in competition barbecue myself, but they didn’t have the texture and they didn’t have the pop of flavor that I want out of a brisket.
The texture for most of them was just a little bit over, just a little bit too tender. And because of the way that I believe they were probably braised, they were just a little almost on the mushy side. Just not not as desirable.
Tenderness was nine and eight among most of my briskets. Eights for those that went over. I only had one that was just a little bit under.
I think most of my taste scores were eight also, because they were just missing that pop.
They tasted like beef, which is great, but they were just missing that extra little layer of flavor that just puts them over the top. Except for like one.
One had all the flavor profiles that needed to. It had just a touch of sauce. Not like overly sweet because I don’t like my brisket sweet, but it had just enough sauce to give it some interest. And wow.
And then they also hit it with some kind of like, you know, finishing dust at the end that also gave it that little, just extra little oomph.
So it just didn’t taste like boiled beef because that’s what some of them tasted like.
I will say that two people turned in burnt ends, and those burnt ends were money like, delicious, full of flavor, perfectly tender, not fatty.
Those were the best bites on the whole placemat. Except one team turned in burnt ends and flat, and their flat was tight and their burnt ends were perfect.
Had they left the flat off, which I know takes balls to do at the Jack, and just turned in a burnt ends box, they would have had three nines from me for sure for that burnt end bite, because it was so delicious.
The other one that had a burnt end also had a flat. I think that one actually got 999 because the burnt end was perfect and the flat was perfect because the flat on that one actually had a little bit of pop and flavor to it.
So that’s what made it really good independently stand out on its own.
Again, the rest were just, just like boiled flavored and just lacking smoke, lacking like barbecue flavor and just lacking a pop of interest that I just miss every time I taste competition barbecue.
But I have to say, kudos to LC BBQ, because not only did he take first place in brisket, he got triple nines from every single judge.
He got a perfect, perfect on brisket at the Jack. So I don’t know what that man is doing with his brisket cook.
I’m going to have to start shigging his website a little bit more on his Facebook pages, a little bit more, but he must have nailed it. I don’t know if he cooks hot and fast. I’ll have to ask him.
But whatever he did to his brisket, the judges loved it. I wish it was at my table. I don’t think it was because I don’t recall, like all of the judges afterwards being like, oh my God, this one was amazing. And we didn’t have that conversation with any of our briskets.
So, I don’t think it’s at my table, but I would love to try his brisket because whatever he did, he did it right. And the judges loved it.
Dessert
All right. The last category. After all that meat, we were in a total meat coma. The last category was dessert. And this year was insane. So many teams turned in dessert.
Like, usually as a judge, we’ll get two, maybe three desserts. My table had five desserts to judge and I walked around and I took pictures of all of the other dessert entries.
And all of the tables had like 4 to 5 dessert entries. So way to go, teams. You really pulled out the desserts this year.
Tons of cheesecakes, of course. But so much other variety. And it was just so fun. The vibe in the tent after all the meat, when all the desserts comes in every judge is just so excited because there’s so much creativity, even though it’s cheesecake.
But the just the displays, the presentations, the variety is just so, so, so cool.
So we had like a lemon blueberry cheesecake with this blueberry sauce. We had, like a turtle cheesecake with caramels and pecans. We had the spooky Halloween type chocolate orange, some other kind of cake with crushed cereal on top. Like it was just it’s just fun.
It’s just really, really fun to see everything that everybody turns in for desserts.
And this year was crazy at the award ceremony because as I mentioned previously, in 2022 and 2023, there was like seven or eight 180s in 2024 at the Jack, there were 13 180s in dessert. They actually called down to 13th place because that’s how many perfect scores there were for dessert.
In the end, it was Bill Gillespie again who took home that first place barrel head in the dessert category from Smokin Hoggz.
He turned it a raspberry swirl cheesecake. That one wasn’t at my table, but the judges loved it. He took home that 180 and that barrel head.
Overall
As for chicken, it was Hot Coles who took first and then Razor Racks BBQ took home first in both ribs and pork, and they had a perfect 180 in both of those categories.
So when it came down to overall, I was honestly expecting Razor Racks to take home that victory. Two first place calls, both with 180s. I thought for sure they were going to be the grand champions.
As they started rattling off the results, I got to say congrats to my boy Smitty from Arizona Loot N Booty Barbecue. He took home fifth place overall, so it was exciting to see that.
But then Razor Racks got called third, which blew my mind because again, I thought they were going to be GC.
In the end. I looked at their score sheets. They got a little bit of a drop in that brisket score, and that’s what knocked them down to third. Second place was Janky Leg BBQ and first place was Scuffletown Smokers.
Super cool story about Scuffletown. They’ve been competing for ten years. This is their first year actually getting the draw and making it to the Jack. And on their first year they took home that GC. So that’s super exciting.
Congratulations to you. Congratulations to all the teams. All the teams that heard their names called and all the teams who just showed up and actually got qualified, got their bung drawn and made it to the Jack.
Questions about scores
Now a few teams have reached out to me about judges scores. They do see the judges score sheets and they see they get 999, and then maybe they get a couple sevens or even a couple sixes, which is just unheard of at the Jack. But it happens.
And so I want to talk to you a little bit about that before I close things up.
So if you got a score at the Jack that you have questions about, pay attention. There are a couple things that you need to do.
First, look at your score sheet. Look at that judge. Whether it’s judge four, judge three, whatever. Look at that judge and look at how you averaged on the table with that judge alone. It’s possible that that judge is just a low scoring judge.
And then look beyond that. Let’s say you were at table 977 and it was judge number three who was scoring low for you. Go and find every other category. Look for table 977. Look for that judge that scored low and see if they scored low consistently.
If so, that’s just what happened. You landed on a table with a judge that just tends to score low. And that happens at the Jack. That happens at all competitions.
And if you’re curious what the scores were for those other teams that had that same judge, you can go to my calculated score sheet. It’ll tell you when you see the overall score of like 34.3200, whatever the number is, you can go to my Excel spreadsheet and then you can see whether that was like a 998 or a 989.
It’ll show you that. And it makes things a lot easier for you. So you can tell if those teams were scored down in appearance and taste or in tenderness. And perhaps that judge just consistently does that.
If however, that judge consistently scores average or above average and you happen to get a really low score from that judge and other judges gave you higher scores at that point, you may want to reach out to the reps.
It’s possible that there was an oversight. Me for instance, I do my sevens by drawing a seven and putting a line through it, and I have been told by table captains they prefer that I don’t put the line through it because it might appear to be a nine when it’s actually a seven. I do that because I don’t want a seven to look like a one.
But same thing, like a six may look like an eight somehow, or maybe an eight can look like a nine, like if they make the bottom part too skinny.
So there are a lot of things that can happen. So if you do feel like your scores, as they were reported on the printed score sheet, are really far off based on how that judge consistently judged throughout the competition, based on how the other scores were from the other judges, feel free to reach out to the reps and ask them to just double check the score sheet and make sure that it was entered correctly.
I have confidence that the Jack probably double triple checked the results because of after what happened at the Royal several years ago. I know last year that they triple checked things because they did not want to make any clerical errors.
They wanted it to be straight up. So I have a I have a feeling I have confidence that they did that again.
But again, if it’ll help you sleep easy at night to just know that everything was actually entered correctly, and then maybe it was just the judge. Go ahead and reach out.
I will say though, when it does come to the Jack, one thing that can be frustrating and the same thing with the Royal is you’re not going to get comment cards.
If it’s a smaller competition and you get a seven or a six, a table captain may take the time to say, hey, can you please fill out a comment card? Can you explain why this is a six and that doesn’t happen at the Jack? It doesn’t happen at the Royal.
The competitions are too big. They are flowing too fast because there’s so many teams pulling in, you know, all sorts of meat that have to make it to dozens of tables.
So it just doesn’t happen. And it’s an unfortunate component of competing in larger competitions. But it is what it is.
That’s why you always got to cook your best and then also hope that you land on a good table. It’s kind of kind of how the game goes. But again, I just want to say congratulations to all of the teams who made it to the Jack.
Thank you to everyone at the Jack. You guys are amazing. You always are so hospitable to me, allowing me to sell in the barbecue store, giving me the opportunity with Certified Angus Beef to cook on Barbecue Hill. All of that was a dream and I loved judging again.
I hope to be back on the competition trail early next year so I can earn my own GC in my own bung because I am itching to cook the Jack again.
If you have any more questions about the Jack, feel free to shoot me a comment, a DM. Look me up somehow. I’ll be happy to help answer any questions that you may have. Until next time guys, happy grilling!
