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.)
Scott’s Bar-B-Que
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: 12/4/13
Kind of a light week in barbecue news…
– Sign the True ‘Cue Pledge today
– The pit shed at Scott’s Bar-B-Que was damaged early last week but should be rebuilt soon, according to Rodney Scott (via)
– Here’s a recipe for brunswick stew from Poplar Tent Presbyterian Church in Concord, NC that includes rice as opposed to potatoes
– 3 suspects sought in a Currituck County barbecue restaurant robbery
– NYC’s new barbecue pits includes Mighty Quinn’s; also, meet the pitmasters from those barbecue joints
To placate his wife’s North Carolina family, he [Hugh Mangum] fused that style with Texas to arrive at “Texalina” — but what has emerged is uniquely NYC.
Scott’s Bar-B-Que – Hemingway, SC
Name: Scott’s Bar-B-Que
Date: 10/9/13
Address: 2734 Hemingway Hwy, Hemingway, SC 29554
Order: Pulled pork plate with baked beans and cole slaw (link to menu)
Price: ~$10
Despite the state’s reputation for mustard-based barbecue, South Carolina is actually home to 4 distinct styles of barbecue sauce – mustard, vinegar and pepper (a la Eastern NC), light tomato (a la Lexington), and heavy tomato (a la Georgia) – a point of pride for South Carolinia, who also claims to be the birthplace of barbecue (I’ve read differently but that’s for another post).
Scott’s Bar-B-Que cooks whole hog over wood coals (there was a huge wood pile out back next to the smokehouse) and uses a vinegar and pepper sauce, very similar to eastern NC barbecue likely due to the town’s proximity to NC (just over an hour’s drive). Both the joint and it’s pitmaster Rodney Scott have received a lot of plaudits and praise in recent years, between stories in major outlets like Time and the New York Times as well as food personality Andrew Zimmern calling it his favorite barbecue joint in the US. So lucky for me, on the way home from a recent mini-vacation in Charleston, Mrs. Monk was game for taking the scenic route back home and making a stop into Scott’s.
Scott’s was started in a convenience store/gas station in 1972 by Rodney’s dad just a year after his birth and has since been taken over by Rodney, who cooked his first hog at age 11. The current setup is still part convenience store, part barbecue joint. Scattered among the shelves of convenience store items and walls are various framed magazine articles and awards for Scott’s, but in a “I guess I’ll just stick this over here” manner. There are a couple of plastic tables and a small bar at which patrons can eat, but it was empty when we arrived at 11:30am on a Wednesday.
Once seated, our food orders were brought to us in no-frills styrofoam to-go boxes with a side of barbecue sauce. The pulled pork was coarsely chopped strands with visible pepper flakes and only slightly warm, but it still had a nice texture and tasted fantastic. I have to say, the barbecue at Scott’s certainly compares very favorably with the best eastern NC joints I’ve had, albeit a little spicier (especially if you add the table sauce also brought out with the boxes).
There was not much to talk about when it came to the sides. Both the baked beans and the coleslaw were nothing special. My plate came with two slices of white bread, which you don’t see all the time but was kind of a nice touch and I gladly used them to make sandwiches (they also helped cut the spiciness of the barbecue). Really, the pork was the star of the show here.
Even as a NC barbecue diehard, I have to admit that Scott’s was a true roadside barbecue experience. Speaking of experiences, the bathroom situation around back and upstairs was certainly one that Mrs. Monk won’t soon forget – I think “scary” was a word used to describe the ordeal – but at least she was a fan of the barbecue. In any case, its location in Hemingway (pop. 573) , about an hour east west of Myrtle Beach and an hour forty-five north west of Charleston, doesn’t make it the most convenient joint to try but Scott’s Bar-B-Que is well worth any detour if you are in the coastal plains of South Carolina. Highly recommended.
-Monk
Ratings:
Atmosphere/Ambiance – 4.5 Hogs
Pork – 4.5 Hogs
Sides – 2 Hogs
Overall – 4.5 Hogs
