Local teams fared well against competition veterans in the inaugural Stills and Grills Fest on Saturday in downtown North Wilkesboro.
The BBQ and Brew Crew team, consisting of Wilkes County residents and sponsored by Wilkesboro-based Carolina West Wireless, finished second in the “People’s Choice” barbecue chicken wings competition. Team members and friends Jacky Mallory, Nick Wehrmann, Ron Brown, Tony Shoemaker and Stacy Treat volunteer their talents by barbecuing for three or four charity golf events per year.
Wehrmann said the team’s wings were dipped in mayonnaise-based Alabama white barbecue sauce, with moonshine from an ABC store added, and with apple wood in the smoker. “We really thought we would place well,” he added.
The North Wilkesboro-based Copper Barrel Distillery team finished third. Copper Barrel CEO George Smith used a sauce prepared by Victoria Elgin, Copper Barrel spirit guide and gift shop manager, when he barbecued the wings. Elgin said the sauce included red cherries strained out in the process of making Copper Barrel moonshine.
Finishing in first place in the People’s Choice barbecue chicken wings competition and winning $200 was a team from Burlington called Get in My Belly.
People’s Choice results were based on voting by Stills and Grills attendees. Each team in the competition was given a 25-pound bag of chicken wings to cook. Attendees who bought tickets could sample wings prepared by each team and then vote.
Ticket holders could also sample spirts from five craft distilleries, a craft brewery and a winery. Tickets were $20 in advance or $25 at the event and could only be purchased by people age 21 or older.
Downtown North Wilkesboro Director Crystal Keener said 800 wings were purchased for competing teams to cook and give to ticket holders. “We should have gotten more” because the teams ran out of wings. “This was the first time we had done this so we had no way of knowing” otherwise.
A team from Cullman, Ala., called Leela Q was named grand champion in the main barbecue chicken competition, sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbeque Society (KCBS). The judges, certified by the KCBS, were from Georgia and Virginia and the North Carolina Piedmont.
Leela Q consists of Lisa Swindoll and her husband, Patrick Swindoll. They enter several KCBS-sanctioned competitions in the Deep South every year in which entrants are judged on the basis of the appearance, taste and tenderness of their barbecued chicken, ribs, pork and beef briskets.
Lisa Swindoll said they’ve won KCBS competitions in Pensacola, Fla., and in several Alabama cities. She said entering the Stills and Grills competition fit their goal of taking their daughter, Brooklyn, to the mountains. “This is a very well organized event and we plan to come back,” she added.
Stills and Grills was a KCBS Competition Series event and as such was allowed to have just one type of meat judged and other variations from KCBS standards.
Keener said consideration is being given to expanding to include more types of meat next year, but this could require making it a multi-day event. She said it also might be held at a time of year when temperatures aren’t as hot.
The other top finishers in the KCBS chicken competition were Get In My Belly, Creekside Smokers from Hildebrand and Smoky Moon BBQ.
Creekside Smokers won the KCBS dessert competition with pecan pie moonshine cheesecake prepared by Renee Abee. The team consisted of Abee and her husband, Joel Abee, and their grandson, Jacob Hudson.
Joel Abee said their friend, South Mountain Distillery owner Don Smith, had a booth at Stills and Grills and this influenced their decision to enter the competition. Desserts had to include moonshine and Smith’s product was used in the pecan pie cheesecake.
Other desserts entered included bananas with moonshine almond sauce, three different cobblers, two cakes and moonshine milkshake.
Don Harwell of Newton, a member of the KCBS board of directors, and his wife, Debby Harwell, were in charge of the KCBS barbecue chicken and dessert competitions.
Harwell said desserts were judged on the basis of appearance, taste and texture. Referring to texture, he said some people prefer banana pudding to be soggier than others.
Harwell said the sauce for barbecue chicken entered in KCBS competitions typically is sweeter and ketchup-based, unlike the vinegar-based sauce typically used when chicken is barbecued in Wilkes.
He noted that vinegar-based barbecue sauce is dominant in eastern North Carolina, Lexington-style barbecue has more of a ketchup base and is sweeter and it generally becomes even sweeter moving farther west in the state.
Stills and Grills was presented by the Downtown North Wilkesboro Partnership and was sponsored by Cube Creative.