Teams around the country are on pins and needles waiting to find out if they qualified to compete in the Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitational BBQ. The draw is taking place Aug. 8, 2024.
Champion Pitmaster Christie Vanover has cooked and judged the Jack. In this week’s episode, she explains how the draw works.
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This week I want to talk to you all about the Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitational Barbecue. In my opinion, this is the most prestigious barbecue competition in the world. And here’s why.
To be selected for the Jack Daniel’s Invitational is really challenging, really complicated. It combines a mix of skill because you have to be a state grand champion, but it also requires a whole lot of luck.
The reason I want to talk about this this week is because today, the day that this podcast drops on Aug. 8, is the Jack draw for the U.S. teams. So I want to explain to you how the Jack draw works.
There are going to be so many teams today just waiting by their computers, waiting for that Facebook post to let them know if they got the draw, if they are going to be invited to compete in this year’s competition.
The Jack Daniel’s competition season is from Aug. 1 to July 31. So for this year’s 2024 Jack Daniel’s, it’s for those competitions that happened on Aug. 1, 2023, all the way until July 31, 2024. So it’s kind of an off season, but those are the competitions that you had to have competed in in order for you to qualify for the Jack.
What is a bung?
Before I talk to you about the criteria for the competitions that teams compete in in order to get a draw for the Jack, I want to talk to you about the bung because you’re going to hear that term.
When a team gets a GC, they’ll say, “Yes, I have a draw for the Jack or I have a bung for the Jack.”
This is a bung. These are my two bungs from the Jack for the past couple of years. It’s basically a piece of wood that goes into the side of the oak whiskey barrels. Those barrels that are used to age that Jack Daniel’s whiskey.
These are the pieces of wood that go in the side of that. So when you get a GC at a qualifying comp, you earn one of these little coveted whiskey barrel plugs.
Competition Criteria
So let me talk about what it takes for a competition to be a qualifier. There are quite a few little nuances and rules.
Sanctioning
First, any competitions that want to qualify for a draw to the Jack have to be conducted by a sanctioning body. KCBS is one of the most popular sanctioning bodies for the Jack draw, but there are other sanctioning bodies out there that do qualify.
If it’s not KCBS, that competition is required to have a chicken, pork and beef cook, and the teams have to compete in all three of those categories. In order for it to be a qualifier for KCBS, you have to cook all four meats in order for it to be a qualifier.
Comp Size
Then it comes to how many teams are actually at the competition. If it’s the first time a competition has ever been held, the organizer only has to have 15 teams, and that means 15 teams that all turn in no DQ.
So you have to have 15 people basically finish the contest with all four meats to make it a qualifier.
If the competition has happened for more than one year, if it’s the second year, fifth year, 10th year, the organizer has to have at least 25 teams. That’s the minimum 25 teams that turn in all four meats and fully qualify.
State Championship Proclamation
But that’s not the only thing. The organizers are required to get a proclamation from the governor of the state where the competition is going to be held, and that proclamation has to state that that competition is a state championship.
So again, 15 teams for a first time contest, 25 teams for a second year or more contest, plus the proclamation from the governor.
Now, if there’s a competition that has 50 or more participants, they actually don’t need the proclamation.
Exceptions
And one more little wrinkle. If the competition is in its second year or third year, but it’s the only competition in that state, there is only one competition happening that full calendar year, then they actually only have to have the minimum of 15 teams, but they do still require that proclamation from the governor.
How to Earn a Bung
So when a team competes in one of those qualifying contests and they get GC Grand Champion, they take first place overall.
So long as it’s a qualifying competition, they’re going to get a bung And that bung is going to be representative of the state where the competition was held.
So I’m from Nevada, but if I compete in Utah and I win a contest in Utah, I’m going to get a bung that’s going to go into a bag for Utah. Then all of the other teams that win first place in Utah are also going to get a bung. And those are all going to go into the Utah bag.
Now there are several competitions internationally now. And if you’re an American and you win a competition overseas, then you will still get a bung. But that’s going to go into the bag for your home state. So again, I’m from Nevada, so if I won in Ireland I’m going to get a bung and it’s going to go in the Nevada bag.
An American is not going to get a bung in an international bag. Those are reserved for the international teams and they have their own criteria.
Earn a bung in Vegas
Speaking of qualifying competitions, don’t forget the BBQ Jackpot. That’s a competition that I’m organizing right here in Las Vegas. It’s going to be Dec. 6 and 7 at the Bass Pro Shops.
Registration for that is going to open up on Friday. All we need are 15 teams to make it a qualifier since it’s the first year, and I’ve already asked for the proclamation from the governor’s office to make it a state championship.
We do have room for 57 teams, which I’m really excited about. I have a feeling that we might sell out, so make sure Friday at noon that you get on that website and get your registration in.
And this year we are only expected to have two competitions in Nevada. The one in Las Vegas and one in Boulder City.
That means if you win one of those juices, you’re a 1 in 2 chance of getting drawn for the Jack.
Playing the odds
As I mentioned, the draw is happening on Aug. 8. So down in Lynchburg, Tennessee, there’s a whole team of Jack Daniel’s people there with all of these bags for all 50 states with full of bungs.
Now there will be some states that maybe only have two bungs. Utah was an example. There were only two qualifying competitions in Utah this year.
So there are two bungs in the bag. In Nevada, there was only one competition. But then if you look at states like California, Texas, Missouri, you’re going to find 10, 11, 20 bungs that could be in a bag.
That’s why teams travel across America. Because if you’re a team in Kansas or even California and you’ve got 10, 15, 20 competitions, your chance of getting drawn is like one in 20.
But if you travel to Utah, where there’s two competitions, or you travel to Nevada where there’s one, or Rhode Island where there’s just like one, then you have a chance. You got a 100% chance of getting drawn, or a 50% chance of getting drawn instead of like a 5 or 10% chance of getting drawn.
So that’s why so many teams travel. They try to win bungs in the States where it’s easier to get the draw.
Auto Qualifiers
Now before that team in Lynchburg starts pulling bungs out of the state bags, there are some bungs that are going to come out because they’re auto qualifiers.
But let me tell you, auto qualifying for the Jack is no easy feat. Here are some of the ways that you can be an auto.
- If you won the Jack last year, then you automatically get invited for the following year.
- If you win the Royal, Memphis in May, The Houston Rodeo, you also get an auto invite.
- If you’ve competed at the Jack for nine years in a row, they automatically invite you to cook for your 10th year.
And one of the super hard ways to get in is if you get seven GCs at qualifying contest within the calendar year. That is like a GOAT level accomplishment. I know LC BBQ just did that. They just got their seventh win.
So they get an auto to the Jack. They don’t have to worry about all the bags that their bungs are in. They automatically get invited.
So all of those autos have their bungs taken out of the bags. So now there’s maybe a little bit fewer bungs in the bags.
So now they’re going to look are there any bags here that just have one bung in them. If so then that’s also an auto. There’s no need to draw. It’s just one bung. So that’s automatically going to be in.
So if that team automatically gets in let’s say a team won in Utah and there was one competition. Well if that team also has a bung in California, Arizona, Kansas, they can take their bungs out of the California, Arizona and Kansas bags because that person’s already in in Utah.
Same thing with all the autos that I mentioned before. So that team that got seven wins LC BBQ, all seven of their bungs are coming out of the bags, which is a little bit better chances for the people who are left in the bags.
Home State Invite
Another way that you can get an auto is if you are the only team from your home state to win a GC.
The Jack really wants representation from as many countries as possible and all 50 states if possible.
A couple years ago, I was the only Nevada team to get a GC, so I was invited to represent my home state.
There is also a chance, though, that if two teams from the same home state get a GC, they may both still get an invite.
If one of those teams has an auto because they were the only bung in the bag, or maybe they got the seven wins or something like that. If they already had an auto, then the Jack will still choose the other remaining home state team to represent their home state.
The second team will go through the draw. If their bung isn’t pulled, the Jack will invite the second team to represent the home state.
And actually, that’s how I was able to compete last year. Stevo’s BBQ won a competition and it was an auto because it was the only competition in the state.
He’s from Nevada. Well, I won a competition in California. Definitely not an auto. There’s a lot of comps there. I didn’t get the California draw, but because I was a Nevada representative and because he was in Nevada rep, his selection was an auto that left me able to represent my home state. It was pretty awesome that we both got to cook the Jack from Nevada.
The Trickle Effect
The crazy thing, though, about the Jack draw is the trickle effect. So once they start removing these autos and they start removing the bungs from the bags, it changes the draw completely.
I’m going to give you an example of what happened this year. See if you can follow along because it’s pretty wild.
So Phillip from LC BBQ won his seven bungs. He got the full seven. He got his auto invite.
As I mentioned, all seven of his bungs were removed from the state bags where he won.
Well, one of his competitions was in Utah. Utah had two competitions this year. Vince from Rythm N’ Que won one of the competitions and LC BBQ won the other competition.
Now that LC BBQ’s bung is removed from the Utah bag, that means Vince is the only bung in the Utah bag. So he’s an auto now also.
Now he happens to be from Arizona. Two teams from Arizona won GC is this year. Well, because now Vince is an auto. That means that the other Arizona team, which is Smitty from Loot N Booty can represent his home state of Arizona.
Smitty has a couple bungs in as well I think California, Arizona if I’m not mistaken. If he doesn’t get a draw in those two states, he’ll still get an invite as a home state team.
But that wasn’t the end of the trickle effect with LC BBQ’s win.
So Vince, who was in Utah, also won a competition in Montana. Since he already has his auto for Utah, his bung can come out of the Montana bag. So what’s left in the Montana bag?
Two bungs from Bushmaster’s BBQ. He’s from Colorado, but he won two contests in Montana. Since he’s the only one left in the Montana bag, he automatically gets his bung drawn. And he’s now an auto for the state of Montana.
I’m sure there were many more trickle effects similar to that, all stemming from the autos, because, as I said, as they start pulling bungs out, as there’s all these other autos, then it just trickles down over and over until they can finally narrow it down.
So the Jack team looked at all of the autos earlier this week. They’ve already posted it on their unofficial Facebook page.
And now on Aug. 8 is when they’re going to look at what bungs are left in the bags, and then they’re going to go and draw those. According to the Jack, contest state bags are randomly drawn and then home state bags are randomly drawn.
Once they draw a bung let’s say they draw a bung from California and a team gets it. But that team also has bungs in other bags, the bungs in other bags won’t matter because you can only have one bung drawn you don’t need two drawn. So that also narrows down the playing field.
Everybody’s super stoked about it. I know that they’re going to announce those who are invited. I am I’m excited and anxious for my friends.
I know that is a lot of information. It is pretty complex, but hopefully this helped you guys out a little bit.
Bottom line is the Jack is really challenging to get an invite to. First you have to win a state championship in a qualifying competition, and then you have to have your bung drawn, which is sometimes luck of the draw, sometimes auto, sometimes trickle effect.
Either way, it is so prestigious to go to the Jack because it’s so hard to get an invitation to it. And when you’re down in the hollow and competing down there, there is nothing like it. It is just the most magical atmosphere.
This year, I won’t be competing. I didn’t get any GCs, but I will be judging and I look forward to tasting the food from all of the teams that get the draw on Thursday.
If you guys have more questions about this, leave me a comment. I can even reach out to the Jack team, if you guys have questions that I don’t know the answers to. So happy to help!
Now, if it’s your dream to cook in the Jack and you haven’t gotten your GC yet. Don’t worry. Keep on pushing. Go to my website. I’ve got lots of tips there. Listen to my previous podcast. I share lots of information there.
Also you’re going to want to pick up this Competition BBQ Log Book. This way you can log all your scores. You can kind of go back and see what things you’re doing right, what things you’re doing wrong. This is available on Amazon.
Also, I’ve got my Steak Cookoff Log Book for those of you who do the SCA competitions. You’re definitely going to want to pick those up.
I hope to see you guys down in the hollow. Good luck with the draw on Thursday.
