Last week proved to be quite an exciting one for Smoke In Da Eye competition BBQ team despite the fact that we were unable to make the trip to upstate New York for the Hudson Valley Ribfest. 

As previously mentioned, early last week we received our application to the highly prestigious American Royal Invitational, while on Friday we found this in our mailbox.



For the past 20 years, Lynchburg, Tennessee has played host to some of the best barbecue cooks from around the world at the Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational Barbecue.  Like the American Royal, the contest is limited to teams that have won a state championship in the last year.  Unlike the Royal, those winners go into a rather complicated draw system that ensures that every state is represented, to be held on September 3rd. 

In our case, there are roughly seven Grand Champion teams in the state of New York but one of those winning teams also won the only qualifier in the state of Maine (our good friends Lakeside Smokers) so they are no longer in the New York draw.  And should another one of the teams get their name pulled in another state prior to New York being selected, they are removed and our odds increase from the current 1-in-6 shot we have.  Confused?  Hold tight.  Should the draw be completed and no Grand Champion team actually living in the state of New York has been selected, a separate draw will take place including just the remaining New York State residents, giving us a last ditch 1-in-3* chance to get in.  Except for the wild card which puts all of the teams that weren't selected back in one more time so that one lucky team can be chosen.   And that's that.  Or that's the way we understand it!

So, depending on what happens on September 3rd we could be loading up the gear and heading back down South on Saturday, October 24th for one of the most prestigious contests of the year.  Stay tuned!

Now before wrapping up, you probably noticed the title of this post and are saying to yourself, I get the bourbon but what about the broads?

Late last week, we were pleased to be featured on the Woman's Day website in a feature about food on a stick.  As some of you may recall, several months ago we created deep fried Spam on a stick (you can see the original post here) as part of our TGI Fryday series (temporarily on hiatus during contest season).  Well, now women around the world get to revel in our deep fried glory!


- SmokeInDaEye.com, Home of Bigger, Badder and Bolder BBQ(c)