Pitmaster, Rodney Scott. Photos by Angie Mosier
During the last census, Hemingway, South Carolina, was recorded to have just under 500 residents; we’re willing to bet that Rodney Scott has fed each and every one of them.
Rodney is a force. His passion for life is evident in his commitment to community, his loyalty to his friends, his willingness to help his neighbors, and certainly in the food he prepares at Scott’s Bar-B-Que, his family’s longtime business, located in Hemingway, just 49 miles west of Myrtle Beach.
Rodney has cooked for Billy Reid countless times over the years and is as good and true a friend as ever we’ve known. And don’t even get us started on his BBQ, not to mention his special sauce. It’s life changing – and we like our BBQ, so we should know.
In November, the pit house behind Scott’s, where Rodney can smoke up to 14 hogs over his preferred wood mix of hickory, oak, and pecan, was lost to a fire. Though that setback didn’t slow Rodney down much as you might think, in a true testament to his friendship, the national group of chefs, restaurateurs, thinkers, and entrepreneurs that call themselves the Fatback Collective rallied to concoct a plan to help Rodney rebuild the pits and continue to feed and nourish his community.
Enter the Rodney in Exile BBQ Tour. Over the next two weeks, Rodney will be touring the southeast, stopping in Atlanta, Nashville, Birmingham, Oxford, New Orleans, with a finale stop in Charleston to do what he does best with members of the Fatback Collective, who in addition to being very devoted friends also just happen to be some of the best chefs in the United States. (They’re all too humble to tell you that, but we can certainly brag on them.)
Rodney Scott
Linkdown: 1/8/13
First linkdown of the new year!
– Friend of the blog Sarah Crosland picks the best bbq stops in Charlotte for Virgin Airways’ blog though the Barbecue Bros have quibbles with: 1) at least one of the picks 2) the fact that we were not consulted 🙁
– The BBQ Jew took in the recently opened Durham location of The Pit last month and had good things to report
– The Barbecue Festival in Lexington makes this list of best barbecue competitions in the US (via)
– A review of Curly’s Carolina, TX Barbecue, a Carolina-Texas barbecue joint in Round Rock, TX
– A small update from True ‘Cue’s Facebook page:
We will be rolling out restaurant certifications and a revamped website early in 2014.
– Some photos from the first stop of the Rodney Scott In Exile Tour from Charleston last month
– Finally, Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill plans to offer barbecue from the restaurant featured each month in Our State Magazine in an event called “Carolina ‘Cue;” up first is Stephenson’s from Willow Springs tomorrow at 6pm, and Bob Garner will be there signing copies of ““Book of Barbecue: North Carolina’s Favorite Food”
Rodney Scott, the famed barbecue pitmaster from Hemingway, SC, is taking his show on the road. After a residency at Nick’s Bar-B-Q on King Street in Charleston, SC, on December 22, 2013, he’ll tour the South from January 20 until February 4, 2014, bringing honest whole hog barbecue to a wide swath of the region.
Why the tour? Two days before Thanksgiving, Rodney’s pit house went up in flames. Undaunted, Rodney quickly put temporary pits in place, stoked the burn barrels again, and flipped more splayed hogs onto the grates. Now, two weeks later, he is ready to plan the rebuild.
On the Rodney in Exile BBQ Tour, Fatback will serve as host for Rodney. The members of the Fatback Collective encourage you to join them in fellowship and ask you to support this bootstrap effort to rebuild a totemic barbecue joint, one sandwich at a time.
The full tour schedule with participating chefs and cities follows:
Rodney in Exile BBQ Tour: Fatback Grand Trail
December 22, 2013: Charleston, SC—John Haire at Nick’s Bar-B-Q
January 20, 2014: Atlanta, GA – Angie Mosier and Kevin Gillespie at Gunshow
January 23, 2014: Nashville, TN – Sean Brock and Patrick Martin at Husk Nashville
January 27, 2014: Oxford, MS – John Currence and John T Edge at Lamar Lounge
January 29, 2014: New Orleans, LA – Donald Link, Ryan Prewitt, and Stephen Stryjewski at Cochon
February 1, 2014: Birmingham, AL – Drew Robinson and Nicholas Pihakis at Jim N Nick’s Bar-B-Q
February 4, 2014: Charleston, SC – Sean Brock, Sam Jones, and Special Guests across from McCrady’s
For more information or to schedule an interview, please contact:
Melany Mullens at melany@polishedpigmedia.com 540.314.8089
Michelle Charak at michelle@polishedpigmedia.com 917.463.3833
Hmm, I might have to see if I can make the second Charleston stop on Tuesday, February 4…
-Monk
Linkdown: 12/18/13
– This month’s featured barbecue photographer on TMBBQ is Denny Culbert from Lafayette, Louisiana, who has some great photos from his Barbecue Bus project featuring Stamey’s, Scott’s, Skylight Inn, and more NC joints
– Here’s what TMBBQ had to say about the new Texas/Carolina barbecue joint Curly’s Carolina, TX
A big vertical smoker uses pecan for the pork shoulders and ribs. It’s all cooked with wood, but there are no coals. We love our smokers here in Texas, but in the Carolinas the pork shoulders and whole hogs are cooked directly over hickory coals. It creates a flavor similar to the Texas Hill Country style of cooking, but doesn’t taste much like slow smoked pork. I questioned Jay and John about this and Jay hoped to have a direct-heat cooker operational soon and even hinted that whole hogs could be on the horizon. Until then, the meat won’t have much Carolina flavor until you squeeze on the vinegar sauce.
– Although this article has a somewhat unfortunate title – “Private school students start barbecue business” – it’s a cool story about high school kids in Thomasville (just outside the Barbecue Bros hometown of High Point) starting their own barbecue business; check out more on Butch Cassidy Barbecue here (via)
– Fervent Foodie has a review on Elwood’s Barbecue & Burger Bar in Ballantyne
– Ever wonder what it’s like to cook a whole hog with Rodney Scott? Well this gives you a better idea:
It’s nine p.m. at Charles Towne Landing, a six-hundred-acre park just outside of Charleston, South Carolina, and Steven Green is holding a blowtorch to an opening in a repurposed oil drum that is filled to the top with damp pieces of oak. Flecks of rain fall across two cleaned, beheaded, and butterflied pigs sitting on a sheet-metal barbecue pit nearby. Tomorrow, the pigs will feed hundreds of Garden & Gun readers who are in town for the first Jubileefestival. Right now, Green and his boss, pit master Rodney Scott, are just trying to get the fire going.