Mopar Action’s Pandering Gourmetmeister and Erstwhile Editor, Cliff Gromer, tours the country in the Mopar Action 1934 Dodge dump truck spreading the Mopar gospel and looking for free eats he can write about on this website. This episode takes Cliff and his dumpster to Lynchburg. Tenn. for theÂ…
15th Annual Jack Daniels Invitational Barbecue
By Nick Brunt
Translated from the Polish By Mel Coznowski
(night janitor)
Photos by TheBruntBros
Any way you cut it, you can’t beat Jack’s meat. We talkin’ about the Jack Daniels’ 15th Annual Jack Daniels Invitational Barbecue. What? You weren’t invited? Well, maybe you and your charcoal grilling cohorts’ food sucks, or maybe you haven’t won a state barbecue championship or a barbecue cookoff that involved at least 50 other contestants this past season. That’s what it takes to receive an invitation from Jack.
Jack’s barbecue cookoff, informally referred to by our tech editor as the JackOff, invited some 60 entries from 31 states as well as 9 other countries. You could tell the foreign teams by their inability to speak English. These guys were grilling upÂ…who knows what? We mean you get sick just by drinking the water in some of those countries, let alone the kind of meat they serve. But, after a few rounds of smoooth Jack Daniels, who really gives a rap?
We were really psyched to pig out on pork–ribs to be exact. The media table, where members of the press expected to gorge themselves to death on all kinds of tasty goodies, remained bare. Strange, that’s no way to get positive reviews.
Every once in a while some “extras” were dumped on the table, and the press corps went into a mini feeding frenzy, there being not enough food for a normal-size frenzy. At least maybe we’d get some ribs. We’d all come for the ribs. That was the best part–the ribs. Finally, the ribs showed up–one apiece.
ONE RIB? HEY, WHADDAFORKISDIS?
Mopar Action editor and pandering gourmet, Cliff Gromer, (right) does the barbecue with ol’ J.D. hisself.
When in Lynchburg, you should take the tour of the Jack Daniels distillery. This is Jack’s safe that did the good ol’ boy in. Jack forgot the combination to the safe one day, and kicked it out of frustration. He broke his toe and never had it attended to. The toe became infected–and one thing lead to another ending in Jack’s demise (Sniff!)
In case you’re wondering who won the Invitational, it was Smokin’ Triggers from Texas. These guys tour the barbecue circuit much like golfers and fishermen tour their own circuits.Here’s a great example of southern down-home humor. It sure puts Mopar Action humor to shame.
“Come a little closer and I’ll stick this in your face!” We were treated to German hospitality from this team from the Vaterland.Butt bowling–another southern pastime that never caught on nationwide. You bowl with pork butts. Boy, do we have empty lives here up north.
Bet you never thought eating was a spectator sport. Starved fans watch judges gorging themselves. Fences keep the mob from rioting for food.Barbecue is run under the auspices of the Kansas City Barbecue Society. This is the judging plate.
Eeek! What’s that thing with the 16 long legs crawling on the barbecued pork spleens? Judges get eats, we get beat.Server presents desert. We never got any of that stuff either. Since we hardly got any of Jack’s meat, we fired up the Mopar Action dump truck and motored over to Jill’s Veggie Stand down the road. 
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