People were responding to the authentic real. We never reheat. That's the way it has to. You go to Hard Truth and it's like, oh, like this is the real deal. It's made up of people who really love what they do, love the other people in the industry and want to help people out. Bourbon and barbecue content is awesome.
How have you guys seen that shift over the last decade? From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between, this is Get In, the show focused on the Hoosier State and the incredible stories happening here today. I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. Mark your calendar. We're headed down to Brown County on July 26th for Hard Truth Bourbon and Barbecue Festival. Get ready for a smoky, savory, and spirited weekend at Hard Truth in Brown County.
Join me at Hard Truth Distilling Co. the weekend of July 25th and 26th for an unforgettable celebration of bourbon, barbecue, and good times. We've got live music rocking from 9:00 until noon with four different acts, bourbon and barbecue tastings and pairings, bourbon blending and cocktail crafting classes, as well as a VIP bourbon and cigar lounge. They also have interactive competitions and outdoor activities, bourbon barrel roll races, barbecue toss and cornhole tournaments, $10 entry for a $300 prize. If you're a good cornhole player, hit me up. Let's join up.
And they have axe throwing as well. Me and my team are going to be down there and I will be releasing a full weekend itinerary for Nashville/ Brown County that is guaranteed to be a great time. Tickets for the Heartruth Bourbon and Barbecq Fest start at $10 for general admission that gets you entry in the festival, the live music and pay as you go food and drink. For $35, you can get the barbecue sampler pass tastings from all the barbecue competitors. Or for $75, you can get the VIP ticket where you get VIP lounge access, premium bourbon tastings, and a guided distillery door by master distiller Brian Smith, previous guest of the show. I will see y'all in Brown County the weekend of July 25th and 26th.
Now, let's get into the episode. Today, I have two spectacular guests. First up, Dave White, the founder of Great White Smoke Barbecue Company, a championship winning Pitmaster and he's based out in Bloomington, Indiana. Beyond the Beef, Dave's heart is in community service and he's the driving force behind Hooers with Hearts, a nonprofit delivering meals and comfort to people in crisis. And I'm joined by a familiar face, Brian Smith, the master distiller and partner at Hard Truth Distilling Co. down in Nashville.
You might remember Brian from our episode, oh man, I don't know, maybe six or eight, nine months ago, I don't even know at this point. Talk about all the fun stuff that's happening down in Nashville, Indiana, uh, later here in June, as well as in July that we're going to get to. Uh, gentlemen, welcome to the show. Thanks for having us, Nick. Yeah, appreciate it. Glad to be here, buddy.
Before we started recording, we were talking about just makers of like Indiana craftsmen, like you know, working together, which is cool. And like the circle of people interested in bourbon and the circle of of people interested in barbecue has a lot of overlap. So, I'm really excited to dive into this and talk about how kind of all three of us are collabing later in July. Um, so first Dave, this story starts with you. We're gonna talk about like how did you get into smoking meats? It's a wild story, man.
How long do we got? Because we got 55 minutes. So, let's hear it. I was a a horiculture major. So, landscape, that was my life from the time I was in high school till I was almost 30. The short version is my son and wife had a tough last trimester pregnancy.
We're both hospitalized for about a month. So, I literally went to a parking lot to sell like cookies and wrist bands. No joke. And they offered uh to let us do a cookout, hamburgers, hot dogs with this Coke trailer. I'm like, I'll let it rip cuz I love to cook. I mean, just backyard fun.
And uh we took Jessica's crock-pot pulled pork. So, we went up there with no expectations. Sold out. Got invited back. The store up to Annie. They wanted to give us some ribs.
a cousin let me borrow a smoker at that point. That was the first smoker I'd ever fired. So, a lot of YouTube, right? The first smoker you ever get to fire up is you're in the parking lot in the middle of it, dude. Well, and it was like night night before prep and then, you know, I did my homework. So, I went at it as educated as I could and it was literally baptism with fire.
So, and I mean that was it, dude. beginning was a lot of burnt meat, a lot of YouTube videos, trial and error, uh, up and down and but overall the food in that parking lot was such a success that week by week and uh, PTO day by PTO day, I got closer and closer to the cliff, man, and finally jumped. What was the final domino that put you over the edge? Out of out of paid time off in a big event at IU. Yeah, it really was. and it was uh put in your notice or or whatever, you know.
And what was the the feedback you were getting? I think a lot of times, you know, you're what you were past 30 when you like went full-time on it. You had a you had a family like a wife and son. Had a son. We had just got home from Riley. Uh he was born and he had disability, Down syndrome, but the the birth was tough, his stats, he was about a month early.
So dude, I mean the long and short is 35 days I was making rounds at two hospitals. Milk from her to him back to her because they gave her some sort of infection. So she was down too. So no work for a month, man. I mean it just ripped into our savings and I was literally just trying to like recoup. The food blew up, man.
And people kept coming and saying, "Man, we could smell you down the street. You smell great. The smoke smells great." And one day I just said great white smoke. because somebody's like, "That's it." So, I took an old camper, gutted it back to the frame.
I mean, it was a 78 Starcraft. Built a cabin right back up on that same frame, and it took me about a year to get the paperwork at that time. We were the third food truck in Bloomington, and it was really the Wild West. It was before all the modern-day ordinances. What year is this? Uh 14 13 2013, we were building it.
It went to its first event. September of that year, we launched on the streets uh paper legal in 2014. Yeah. On the streets of Bloomington. And then uh the rest is history, man. Man.
And Brian, you know a thing or two about like the craft that goes into whether it's cooking or, you know, making good bourbon. Like how how wild is that to show up at an event and you know, okay, now we're like cooking on a smoker. Like I can figure this out. So I love first of all, I love hearing the story. It's really inspiring. There's something that I've really never talked much about, which is right before I started with my project, I actually was looking at um a food truck in Bloomington.
So, right around that same time, 134, I've actually got this little packet at home of uh of all kinds of things. It wasn't barbecue, but um different ideas. But I know what you're talking about because I I called about all the regulations and all that stuff. But what I love about barbecue and what I love about what you do, Dave, I grew up in Evansville and really the best barbecue that I could get as a kid was in parking lots with guys just like Dave raising money for, you know, different causes, whether it was youth, you know, soccer or somebody was ill or whatever. Um, so my dad and his buddies, you know, they'd set up at the Thornton's parking lot. And I mean some of those pit masters down there, they never had brick and mortar, but I mean I still think about that food.
And it's like they could sell out before noon. It's like they, you know, they do little thing, get it rolling, but it's like, okay, we're going to start selling at 10:30 and it's like an hour and a half later. Sorry, like we're out of it. It's so cool. Well, and a lot of that stuff too that I that I you know for the fundraising was like, you know, whole slabs of ribs, whole chickens, whole butts, you know, so you're just you're buying it, then you're taking it home to your family and making the sides and doing all the thing. But it's a it's a great way to bring community together.
That's a great story, Dave. I love it. And I think that going from kind of like side gig like we have to make some extra money to okay now it's official and you have like all your paperwork to like did I read that you have over 100 competition wins. Oh yeah. Yeah. Like I we quit counting honestly.
But it's like I think the like how many guys in any community whether it's Evansville or Northern Indiana or Bloomington or wherever like cook really good fundraiser ribs but never like and everyone's like oh man you should put these in a contest and they never actually like go and do that. Like what was the again I'm going to use a cliche term but what was the domino that fell that got you to start competing? I think our first on the street gig was Little 500 in 2014. Big Red Liquors. Uh, Coglesier. I forgot to say his last name.
I just butchered it. I'm sure. Matt. Coglazer. Yeah. Yeah, that's it.
Sorry, Matt. He gave us a spot in the parking lot. Big Red Liquors gave Great White Smoke. Yeah. We pulled up in front of that huge building across the street. I can't remember the name of it.
They're on College Avenue. The Chamber of Commerce came up and they were having they had this cookoff that they were in their second year. Uh, it's like their open briefcase. All the members bring a a booth to the fairgrounds and then the eight barbecue places all competed for like city rights. And uh there was a world champ, a KCBS world champ, Bill Maglin from Thunderhawk. Just a stud.
I mean, dude's one of the goats for sure. In 14, we actually won the people's choice with my wife's uh pasta salad. So, it was a side dish. I mean, dishant. Yeah. First walk ever.
And so I'm hooked. The next year in 15, we went back, ran the table, beat Bill, won a grand championship, and dude, I mean, I was it was a hook line and sinker. He got us in a KCBS event that year. Wait, wait, you beat him and then he gets you into Dude, the the barbecue family and brotherhood. I don't know, you know, what it's like with the bourbon community, but like I've never been a part of anything. I played sports my whole life.
Whole life. And to have somebody that you're actively trying to beat on that field and you're say you forgot something, if it's in the trailer, they're going to give it to you straight up. I mean, it is that's awesome. Is that similar in the bourbon space? Very similar. You know, the world of American whiskey, whether it's bourbon, rye, whatever.
Um, there's a very small number of human beings responsible for all that whiskey. Um, and there is really there always has been historically, you know, there's been this rising tides kind of mentality, but you know, there's there's you can go back to like the the fires at Heaven Hill and, you know, they lost all these barrels and they were going to go out of business and so all these big heritage distilleries donated barrels to them to keep their bottles full and then help them to save strains of yeast. I'll never forget I got to meet um, Bill Samuels Jr. from Makers Mark. He said to us, you know, he gave us all this information was so helpful. And then he said, you know, if I can help you all, you know, getting started making better whiskey, it helps everyone in American whiskey space.
So, it's it's kind of like a, you know, we're building this brand of American whiskey to take to the world and it doesn't help anybody if you're making crappy. Yeah. And it's like, let's say your first foray into American whiskey is not a good one. Then it's like, ah, I'm never whether it's the most expensive, the cheapest, whatever it is, it's like a that's just not for me. Like one bottle, one sip could make their judgment on the entire space. Yes, it does.
And and you know, I I I'll say also probably like in your world, it's also made up of some really great people. You know, on top of kind of the general sense sense of it, um really it's it's made up of of of people who really love what they do, love the other people in the industry, and want to help people out. I love that. And we know that like I mean from that those first conversations you all had, like you guys have grown all across the country, done amazing things. a great partner of us here which which we love uh having you back on the show. Dave, give us a perspective of like from you know winning that first contest a singular food truck to like the magnitude of Great White Smoke today.
You know in those early days I think I thought that a restaurant was the top of the hill and that's what we wanted and we had a couple opportunities. We ran two restaurants from early 17 to 19. It's a wild story. My son had some medical stuff, so it was up and down. And um dude, I got out of the restaurants, finalized all our contracts right before COVID hit. So, we backed out.
And I honestly I I'm I'm going to be honest, man. I love barbecue, but the business side of it is a little tough. When we cater, sometimes we get a little push back on the price. And I always tell people, I'll never be the cheapest, but I can promise if you're going apples for apples, after you have the food, you'll see the quality. You know, you're not coming after Cracker Barrel. No disrespect, but everything is cooked.
I mean, the macaroni and cheese, dude, is a sauce is from scratch. Everything. So, I thought that was the top of the hill when really I think that catering has been great for us and uh the competition stuff and it's led to the other things. Yeah. So, you went you had a one restaurant space. We had two.
You had two spaces. Yeah. And was that hard to then be like, "Hey, this just isn't right for like that's not what we want to do." And like how did that perspective change for you? Well, I took it really hard and I guess that was the point I was kind of dancing around there was I had got to where I thought we needed to be and now I'm offsite with food trucks. I'm out at a catering event and I come into the restaurant and somebody that I'm paying an hourly rate, I think you know where I'm going, that the steamed tables turned up.
I got beef jerky going out the window and somebody from Connecticut, that was their one shot to get us. Like especially in something that's like such a craftsman's like thing, you know, like I don't know. I I would love to know when you were operating a restaurant like what's the like what time do you have to be in? Are the smokers always running? Is brutal. Is brutal.
And that was kind of part of it too was that I was working 20 hours a day. No joke. four four hours of sleep a night because we were doing everything stick burner at that point. Now we've got big gravity feds that they run on charcoal but they've got a draft machine so you don't have to worry about it. But back then it was that way man. So I had told my wife she had been home with my kid.
I'm like I think your world needs to get a little bigger. She was a Kelly SC uh Kelly school grad. Oh yeah. So she went back into corporate world with Sam's Club. Got a great job. I started hanging out with the kids.
was doing a little bit of competing and in 2020 we got our first national sponsorship from Royal Oak Charcoal. That relationship, dude, I'm telling you, if you dive into that, you know, arena as a fan and you look at the members of team Royal Oak, they have about a hundred sponsored teams and dude, it's the best of the best. I just couldn't believe we got the call at that point. When you're that close to it, I don't think you realize what where you're at in the game. Well, can you explain that to us? Like, I don't know the I don't like how that works.
So they come like, "Yeah, we want you to be a competitor for us." At that point, they had an application process every year. So you applied and it would be thousands of teams applying. They would look into your socials, all your numbers, and then that's how they picked their teams. Well, so they pick it not based on the quality of your barbecue. I think it's a commulative.
They had some kind of score system built in, and you had to have wins, you had to have personality, and you had to like mirror their values. Yeah. you know, in a way. And uh that opened so many doors. The guys on those teams now we got rub sponsors, spice sponsors. So when I was literally trying to back out of barbecue, those kind of companies and competition grabbed me and pulled me back in.
Like you were done. Like when you said you were closing you were closing the restaurant, you were like, "Nah, this isn't for us." The work was just killing me. And the time away from my wife and kid and watching her be, you know, she was a great mom, but she's a awesome worker, dude. So, she was just wanting that and she never asked for it, but I could just tell and I was so sick of defending our product to tight wads over, you know, quality and price that I was ready to back out. Even when you have like like a like wins like you've won like this is award-winning barbecue.
People were still coming in and it's like and it was still pretty early. I mean, to their defense, even though they should be defenseless, you know? I mean, it wasn't like we were beating down world championships then. The family and barbecue, same way. Like I teach classes now every year and it's because I want the areas that I come out of to have bangers in it because if you don't beat somebody then who are you really? So it's about making the whole So So I want to like dive just a little bit into this.
Take us to the moment. So you're you're like I I'm over this. I'm done. Like your wife's going back to work. Screw barbecue. Sucks.
And you get a call or an email. What what's the Yeah, it was the Royal Oak. You've been selected. And so that fired me up to do more content because you have to do, you know, once you're in contract with them, you need to do some content stuff. You have like x amount of posts per month, whatever. So it pulled me in and then I started doing more organizing of events locally to try to help because after co events just started dropping out.
Yeah. That's kind of how I got into organizing was I had a grip on the system that was just throwing a party past that to go with the system. And and somewhere along this journey, you both get involved with World Food Championship. Yeah. Indiana gets World Food Championship back in 2024, right? And how did uh Brian, how did Hard Truth get tied into World Food Championship?
We had a connection through someone who was working for us out of St. Louis that that knew some of the folks that were responsible for it and I think they were looking for um some partners that were outside of the food space. And so, you know, here we are. We're making farmerto bottle grain to glass whiskey. Um, you know, not an hour away from the uh where it was going to be held. So, it was really it was a no-brainer.
Again, it was one of those kind of moments where, you know, we wanted to be there, they wanted us there. So, it was it was perfect. Yeah. And then Dave, how did you guys get tied into World Food Championship? Well, we had been doing KCBS and uh when Oh, for those that don't know, what is KCBS? Kansas City Barbecue Society.
Is that like the sauce? It's a sanctioning body. So, it's kind of like NBA. Oh, okay. Or so they're the ones, you know, they've got the rules and you have to be a judge through them. There's a bunch of other sanctioning bodies, but KCBS is probably the oldest.
Kansas City is a big barbecue hub in the United States, right? Yeah. We do the they have the American Royal there every year, which is the World Series of Barbecue. It's about 900 teams in the Kansas Speedways uh infield. No way. It's massive.
Yeah. World world Ser and then if you win categories there you're world it's a world champion because we get asked that all the time. You're you two-time world champ. How do you measure that? Where do you win them? And you won it in Kansas City.
Uh so with James Grubs at the helm with his sausage. I can only take credit for helping get it in the box cleanly. But James from Netflix who's going to be uh joining us at Hard Truth in July. He put us on the podium. Great White Smoke, current world world sausage champions. The world.
This is the first time we've ever had a world sausage championship in the studio. Holy smokes. Wait, so how did you get connected to James Grub? So it's that barbecue family. Grubs lives outside of Atlanta and you know, we saw him on the show and uh we were going to cook a show in Nashville and there was a rub guy that was making rubs that was uh hooking James up. He hooked us up.
We talked on the phone a couple times. I invited him to sit in with us at a cook in Nashville. Um because he's a great cook, but he had never done competition. So Nashville, Tennessee. Tennessee. Sorry.
Yeah. Fine. Whatever. Yeah. Yeah. They got a couple big shows down there.
I mean, it's a And there was a a TV show that was going on that we were just We weren't in it, but we were guest of Royal Oak, so we all met and mingled at that thing. And this is interesting. Okay. So, Brian, how long have you been in the bourbon space? Uh, since 2015. Okay.
So, 10 years there, 12 years in kind of the barbecue space. Yeah. I mean, we were hitting our head. I I've seen that where we came, we broke out at the same time, dude. And now we're crushing them. Let's go.
At the same time. Yes, sir. Uh the interesting piece about both of these is over the last decade the rise in content and like creators and influencers in both spaces uh has kind of been on the right like the Fred Minnick of the world, right? And like all these barbecue you were just showing me who the Argentinian Alfreoni team royal there you go. Um, but that's interesting to see like the rise of and obviously there's like creators in all these spaces, but I think specifically for like I don't know guys 25 to 45 or 55 like bourbon and barbecue content is awesome. How have you guys seen that shift over the last decade?
Obviously, it's a very visual platform, right? What taps into your most primal, you know, lizard brain more than things on fire, right? meat sizzling, um, wood burning, corn, you know, like crops being grown. I mean, visually both both of them both of the contents are are really really really engaging. So, I think it's a matter of kind of just like the best way to make great barbecue and great whiskey is to kind of, you know, get the right ingredients, let it, you know, kind of get out of its way, right? But when you get out of its way, it still looks beautiful on a on a uh on a content reel.
the the amount of information that there is now versus when we were probably trying to find it. Yeah. You know, barbecue was a mystery. Yeah. It was an oral tradition. It was.
And there was a lot more gatekeeping back then. You know, there's a there's a term in barbecue called shigan. So, shigan is uh when you basically go over to your neighbor and you just kind of make conversation all while checking out the supplies, trying to pick up on a little secret here and there. And now, I mean, everything's a paid gate, so you can literally, and I mean, I'm guilty. We give the classes, but I that's why with KCBS, it's kind of like I call that the barbecue lottery. Now, once you're on the level, each judging table only gets six boxes.
So, if there's a hundred contestants, you know, you're never going to be on the same table with guys. So, it really matters what table you hit. So, it starts to be a little bit of luck. Whereas World Foods that we were talking about, you get to turn in cards that say, you know, you're trying to, you know, in KCBS, you got to hit the sweet profile, that sweet, savory, where in World Foods, you get to go outside the box and like tell them what you're trying to do. So if it's a raspberry chipotle, you can say that. And how did you get plugged into World Foods?
When it came to Indie, I saw it in Houston. And that's just farther. I try to keep it I mean I've been to Colorado for some shows but eight hours we try to keep it in there when they came to Indie because do you have to like take your smoker with you? Yeah. We pull a trailer. Yeah.
A whole bit. I mean it's Yeah. It's a it's a full production. I mean it really is. But uh when they came to Indie I'm like we need to try to qualify because you got to get a golden ticket to qualify. So we went to Louisville Famous Dave our first ever World Foods cook and won it down there.
Dude. Wow. I was blown away because it was some KCBS studs. I mean studs. And so I mean it was pretty intimidating and the the setup. So we usually all have these nice big cozy trailers and they roll us up and give us a 10 by 10 and like you're in the lot.
That's it. And I'm like bro this where I'm from right here. So we won that one. We qualified and then uh we made the finals last year. So now we were automatically back in for this year and uh we've actually picked up a few exemptions. So I think we're we're in till it's out of Indie for right now.
Oh wow. And how long is is it like said how long they've renewed in Indie for? I heard it was a fiveyear contract. Oh. So you're you're chilling a little bit. I'm hoping.
But you still got to come and and produce on the day though. Yeah. And we still go cook, you know, like we cooked uh Indie this year when we got runner up to one of our good buddies out of Atlanta. another Royal Oak guy, deep south. He'll be at both events Randall, uh, stud. And then we're cooking Detroit, too.
For me, because if you can't win another Golden Ticket, they just rolled down. So, if I were to win it, second place, didn't have one, he'd get it. But, uh, it's just keeping the blade. Well, we had uh we had Colin uh Hilton. Yeah, Hilton. He we had him on the show and like just learning about the process of World Food Championship is just crazy.
Like especially because if you let's say you win live fire Yeah. then like you got to go compete like and you could have to make like a dessert or whatever like a main dish you know and not have live fire. Yeah. Like that's kind of interesting. We're qualified for barbecue. So there's barbecue and live fire separate Oh yeah.
entries. So to get an invite to the live fire was really special. Um, I know for me and Randall both because we're stepping the way I came up cooking was live fire both in how I started plus I grew up in Salsbury like we talked about camping and dude in the woods and we we always primitive camped back then and cooked over fire. So, I mean it it's literally I've been training for this my whole life, man. I I love it. You know, I've got a quick question for you, Dave.
So, this is maybe my perception, but grow So, I grew up in Evansville and Evansville and south into Kentucky and Tennessee, there's a pretty robust barbecue culture. Oh, yeah. You know, um Owensboro, man. Yeah. Owensboroough. And but then once once I moved up to Bloomington to go to college and then up in Indie, there were some great barbecue places, but I didn't I didn't find that same culture.
And not only that, but the consumer base, it wasn't the same. Um, you know, barbecue places struggled. So, do you find that and are you are you seeing that getting better? I mean, central Indiana. So, when I think about when we started and who's left, there's only a few restaurants that didn't roll through or past us. It's kind of the same with food trucks.
And I think it's the same thing, man. Like, I know there's a guy and it's no names, but in Bloomington right now, he's got really popular, but he's cheating and he's starting to get exposed for it a little bit, you know? How do you What do you mean by cheating? So, like bagged stuff. You can buy brisket from a bag or pork from a bag. Just you can get your mac and cheese ready to dump out.
I mean, I guess I could like go start a food just like warm up stuff up in the back. Yeah, there's a difference, man. That's like if you were going to have a concession stand somewhere, you could pull that off all day. Track food. You know what I'm saying? There's a time and a place.
But for us, the way it hit was that the people were responding to the authentic real. And that was my like we've d we never reheat. I will give away food to neighbors when we come home every time. I'm never bringing yesterday's barbecue to today's service ever. That's awesome. Yeah, bro.
And that's the way it has to be. My um I was talking to my girlfriend's dad and his name's Steve. He sometimes listens to the show. So Steve said his dream retirement gig would be either like brewing beer or like or having like a barbecue truck. So and there's a lot of like average Indiana like retired guys. I'd love to just smoke meats all day.
What would you say to uh to those guys that are like maybe on the edge or thinking about it that maybe they want to be the like uh in the local Kroger parking lot till selling out? How could they get from an idea to making that happen? You know, it's kind of one of them things like like anything else where you have to I think be put in a position to not have losing be an option. Yeah. You know, I built block walls and patios and koi ponds. I'm talking like physical labor, you know, all my life before that.
And uh the food trucking was as relentless, if not more. And paired with the barbecue, cooking it that way. I mean, it was a good thing that I was in my early 30s. I got in pretty bad health. In the later end of my 40s, I got really heavy. Recently, I've dropped 80 pounds.
Hey, let's go. And I'm feeling great again. And it's rekindling that. But it literally it's so hard, man. I mean, if you work with barbecue all day, like I would I would be heavy, man. Like, you got to you got to sample the product there.
Yeah, you do have to taste. I mean, legitimately. Yeah. Well, and and uh Brian, you started in the brewery kind of space, right? Your first dip into alcohol, right? Sure.
Weren't you working with the brewery and then they got the still and you were like, you know what? I want to go dabble around with this thing. My introduction to the company was was through the brewery, through Quaffon Brewing Company. But really, I I think what speaks to to kind of what Dave does and and what brought me to it and you mentioned the word relentless. All of us have to be relentless in our pursuit to to you know for vocation. But if you have the motivation within you that's driving you towards something that so to your point about your uh your girlfriend's uh father if you have the passion burning it it makes that hard work way more satisfying but also um easier to find the motivation to get it done.
And I think uh you you can like see it in people where it's like if they're just like always consuming bourbon or barbecue content or they're like always learning like he tracks like like he has a meat journal like he he does the thing and I'm like oh my gosh that's what he's like yeah that would be like kind of my dream retirement gig. I'm like, man, like I I am nowhere near the the level of interest to like have the full meat journal because he gets up at like 2 am or whatever. Like throws this on, smokes this thing, does he has one of the drawer ones, you know what I'm like, it's like a cabinet looking one. Uh it's super cool. I have like a Yeah. So, I'm not necessarily like the long term.
It's like a small little tailgator one, but like I get out there and throw some wings on it every now and again. Yeah. Well, I you know what, Nate, with the platform you have through Get In, I I think this maybe is the moment that we should decide that the rest of Indiana and central Indiana that we are going to, you know, we're going to boost the barbecue culture and the the whiskey culture here and really highlight people like Dave that are creating great barbecue in the state because again, the consumer base, I think around here, from what I've seen, is used to, you know, kind of some subpar um barbecue. Now again, there are some great pit masters there. There's some great barbecue, but it's like you you go to Kansas City or you go to St. Louis or you go down to Owensboro and I mean, everybody knows barbecue and they talk about it and they think about it and it's planned for all the major events.
And I think it's not quite the same up here in central Indiana. I think we should change that. That's interest. I like that and I like hearing that because if you're not like thinking about that or or you just like grown up around central Indiana or northern Indiana, it's kind of like oh yeah, you know, there's some barbecue joints. But yeah, like you go or like Austin, Texas. Oh, it's like man, every corn there's like 10.
It's like you have to like create a what is it called? Like a bucket list of barbecue when you visit Austin. Yeah, dude. They start I mean those lines start at 4 in the morning. place to open at noon or or 11 or 10 and 4:30 you're 30th in line. People drive three, four hours to go stand in that line.
Yeah. Or like Memphis, they have good barbecue, too. Uh we do need to we need to up the barbecue game. Well, and that's a little bit about like kind of your guys' the way that you started like partnering up on these two events that are coming up is to increase a little bit of that here in central Indiana. And I guess you call Brown County southern or central Indiana? Uh it's southern Indiana.
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Let's get back into it. So talk to us about what you guys have coming up in June and then what we all three we can kind of dive into what we have going on July. Sure. So end of June, June 27th, 28th. Uh the main events on the 28th. Um we're having the charred truth.
So a little play on uh char of barbecue and hard truth. And it's going to be a uh a live fire qualifying round for the world food championship. So Dave was talking about that golden ticket. So, the winner of this uh event will get that golden ticket to compete at the World Food Championship. How many different pit masters will be there? I think there's nine.
Eight. I think it's eight. Eight. There's eight. Yeah. And Dave's going to Dave's going to Oh, you're competing.
Yep. But that was where you said if you win, it rolls down to whoever gets second. Yeah. But that one's just kind of like for bragging rights, too. It's like, ah, yeah, buddy. Uh, so you're bringing eight pit masters together in June.
What? 28th. June 28th on our property, Brown C. you know, hard truth in Brown County. So, if you've if you know, you've been there, I know, and and and post some content. So, that beautiful terrace area that goes down to the stage.
So, we're going to be setting up the pits down there. It's going to be a full day full of awesome live music, great barbecue, um some competition, a lot of great cocktails, a lot of great samplings of hard truth whiskey. Where are the pit masters coming from? All over. There's some international. I think there's there's one guy.
There's two from Texas, one from Georgia. Uh, the Michelle Owen is from Tennessee, Oklahoma, and there is an international. Well, Al's from Argentina, but Al's doing demos. He's not competing, right? I think it's Al's son that's going to be there that day, I think. So, yeah.
Wow. Yeah. It's I'm telling you, we did the Zoom the other day, and I was looking at the faces in that Zoom just like swimming with juggernauts. Well, and I think that some people are like, "Oh, we're just like, this is like a regional barbecue competition. This is like an Indiana." It's like, no.
And I think that goes back to your original point where it's like, you know, barbecue's already like it's like could be bigger in central Indiana. Absolutely. But so now you're bringing in some of the best pit masters from around not only the US but also like some international inspiration there to Nashville, Indiana to Hard Truth. We're going to have like a day of bourbon, live music, barbecue. Yeah. And the and the ticket and the the cool thing is you're not just going to get to watch them cook, you're going to get to eat their barbecue, which is Do you get to sample at World Food Championship?
There is a sampling portion. Yeah. It's more like they'll have demos around there, but it's not like the actual not like this. So, this is like you're cooking for people. Yeah. You know what we might do at World Foods is uh give a bunch of trays to a place and they'll serve it here.
You get to come up to each team's booth and they're going to serve you a people's choice sample right there and then you'll vote at the end. Wow. For which one was the best. That's pretty cool. Yeah. There's So that's the end of June.
There's going to be two levels of tickets and you can buy your tickets at hardtruth. com. Yeah. Then we're all teaming up at the end of July, but we're we're taking our team down to Brown County July 25th, 26th. Mhm. So, the 25th, I don't think you know this, 25th, we're hosting a bar takeover at Moontown the night before.
So, we did the uh small town showdown bracket challenge where we were finding the best small town across the state of Indiana. And we had over 100,000 votes. Wow. And it was bracket style, like 64 small towns all competed out. Nashville won. Wow.
And the reward was, hey, whoever wins it, we'll go and spend we'll open a $1,000 bar tab at your at your Main Street bar. And so Nashville one, we know the crew at Moontown, so we're going to go there and shoot a video of like how to spend $1,000 at a local bar. That's awesome. Then we're waking up Saturday. We're doing uh ooey gooey cinnamon rolls for breakfast. You're going to need those after to two the night before and then the big day, right?
And so we got to get a salad base layer. Ooey gooey. Is that what the place called? It is, man. Those things are those things will put you better pit in a nap. There you go.
For post ooey gooey. We're going oo. Then I think noon everything kicks off the bourbon and barbecue fest uh with hard truth. It's not the world food championship like that event. This is just fun, right? There's a sanctioning body that u it it's actually won it twice before I moved on and went on to the board.
It's called the Kentucky Barbecue Pit Masters. So that that was actually kind of the breakout that got Royal Oaks attention because it's a regional. It's all there's teams from Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and um it's a great group of guys and in 2020 it almost died. So that's when I started hosting a couple events to try to keep it going. And that's why when we were talking, I was it originally started I was trying to get them to come and do some drinks out at the lake and they were like, "Bro, we're kind of hovering on this weekend. Why don't we just bring the party here?"
And I came and saw the terrace and was like all in. All in. Um, that's the thing where it's like if you show up and see Hard Truth, it's built to host cool events. Oh my gosh. Like the whole stick is like the you have the stage and the terrace and the I mean just the whole property. Just saying it's a vibe does no justice.
It really you have to be there. Yeah, for sure. So, so this is was an event that was already going on that's just kind of like moved and Yeah. shifted into the Bourbon and Barbecue Fest. Yeah. Well, I had started, it was called Hog Days.
We started at Bogs, and we just outgrew the peninsula down there. So, we came to Fairfax for a year to try to get back into the Bloomington for a bigger crowd, and that was kind of it. I was like, man, we need a show to go with this because you had people kind of coming down to see the teams, but it was missing the big show element. So, when uh, you know, Everett and everybody brought it up, man, I was like, this is a grand slam, dude. I had 17 teams already signed up and I said, "Let me call these 17 teams, make sure it's okay that we move." And not a person hesitated.
And two days later, we had 30 teams, which we set as our capacity for year one because we just want to make sure logistically it's good for everybody. I did not know there was there's 30 teams. 31. 31. Oh, so we flex. We let we let someone Well, Randall Bowman, he he wanted to come from Georgia and I just, man, I couldn't imagine telling that guy no.
He's a a legend. Deep South Smokers. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, we made spot for Obviously, we had to have 325 acres. We we cornered out a little piece for him. Where are you going to fit 31 barbecue teams?
Yeah. Up in the back lot. So, you know, and that's I tell you what's going to be really cool, man. We're doing something with this that's going to be special. Usually you go to these shows and it's just kind of overwhelming of how to meander around. So there's going to be a ton to do on the terrace, but there's also going to be a VIP type ticket where kind of similar to a barrel house tour, we're going to do tours of the pit area.
So we'll get somebody from our group to lead a tour around and they'll introduce them to teams, show them the different kinds of smokers, see the teams in action a little bit. You get a guided tour. So there's I mean one of the most popular things that's ever said when you're out is man I've really been wanting to try one of these. I just can't get into it. You know it's that and I think that you know once they see that and kind of see how friendly everybody is and willing to share it'll uh it'll ease some things. So we've already kind of talked.
I think we're going 60 teams next year. We're going to just double down because you might need to make it just an even 64 like a bracket style like I'm with it. I'm come on 60. So, I mean, you already had 31 this year. It's going to be this crazy experience. We're coming down.
We're shooting content. Like, I'm like, I'm excited to I mean, first off, be down in Brown County and like I feel like everyone listeners, this is for you. Everyone says like, "I need to go to Brown County." Like, like we should put that on the list. We need to do that. But it's like the final nudge.
This is it. The final nudge to send people like, "Book your overnight because it's bourbon and barbecue, right? Emphasis on the bourbon. Book your overnight. Come down, hang out. There's live music from noon until 9.
Yeah. And I think Justin Wells is is rounding out the day. Killer band. Yeah, he's killer. Let's go. Yeah.
And and we're gonna also there's there's two tiers of tickets. Um I will tell you that you're going to have a great time no matter what tickets you get. But uh that VIP um you know the VIP level ticket, those those lounges that we set up, the VIP tent with the tastings for our hard true spirits are going to be pretty special. Um we are actually going to be releasing um a new whiskey also that weekend. So it'll be the first time we actually did a misinara finished um whiskey. So Misanara is a Japanese oak.
Like a lot of things from Japan. There is just some magic in that wood. And I will tell you that that whiskey it's done now. So I I know exactly what the final the final iteration of it tastes like. Um it's going to be stupendous. So, not only wa he said he said stupendous.
It's crazy. So, so you know this is yeah for for people who haven't been out that little nudge you know we've got 325 acres it's beautiful beautiful place lot of room to spread out. Everybody thinks of Brown County and Nashville like Nashville proper is a little bit kind of congested but man hard truth you we've got walking trails everywhere. Um it's just a great place to to stop and land and we'll have tours and great barbecue. It's going to be awesome. VIP tent, too.
Just doubled down with that release. I didn't even know that, man. That's awesome. Yeah. And the cigar lounge, too, right? And Grubs that we were talking about earlier, James Barbecue Grubs, the rightful heir to the crown of the sausage world championship.
He's going to be making that sausage and sampling it out at that same VIP area. So, you'll get to try that. That's awesome. That very recipe. Believe there's some barrel rolling, too. There's going to be some whiskey barrel rolling.
Yeah, I see bourbon barrel roll races, axe throwing, and the cornhole tournament for money. Yeah, which I mean, come on. This is seems like we're going to have a we're going to have a good time. I'm pretty pumped about it. Not pretty pumped. I'm very pumped about it.
It's going to be fun. We're going to be down shooting content. We're bringing This will be our first company off-site outing. We have like four full-time employees now or three, including me. Um, and we're taking the all the part-timers, too. So, it's going to be a good time.
That's awesome. So, we're gonna have some fun down there. Brown County. This is so Friday night the 25th and but then the Bourbon and Barbecq Fest is Saturday the 26th and there are limited tickets. So, you know, I know a lot of people are trying to, you know, get their schedules right, but uh but go, you know, you go to hardtruth. com and and the tickets really aren't crazy as far as price-wise.
I think we've kept it pretty reasonable. Yeah, it's very fair for the experience. Even like I think the VIP ticket like at the top is like the the most expensive ticket you could buy is like 60 or 70 bucks or something. 7 I think it's 75 bucks and it's like you get drinks, you get we like to sample, you get to do the whole thing, the whole experience, but like I think to get in the door it's like 10 bucks, right? Like I think the minimum one like you know there's something for everyone down there and if you're I will say stay the night. It's going to be fun.
We're going to be having a good time. And we're family friendly too. Yeah. So it's you know kids are welcome. There's there's children's there's a kids price ticket. Um, but some people think about distilleries and they think about just an adult experience, but really what we built at Hard Truth is for anyone who wants to come.
So, yeah, it'll be uh it'll be a great time. I heard Mike Mloud talking about it. He's that's the founder of uh World Foods and he said he was talking to you guys up at at Indie and you know that you were excited to come back this year and wanted to do something special at the distillery and he said, "I've got to go down and see it, you know, and we'll we'll come down and talk." and he said, you know, I'm a Tennessee boy, so I kind of had an expectation of what a distillery should be. And he said it far exceeded it. And I think you have to see it to believe it.
I mean, if if there is a hidden gem, if it could still be qualified as that, if you haven't been, I mean, once you get there and see, you know, how expansive it is, man, it is a very special place. I mean, I tell everyone I rave about it because it does feel whatever your place of choice is on the Bourbon Trail or like you know down in Kentucky or wherever and you like have this feeling it's going to be very like kind of takes your breath away a little bit when you drive up to it like you get the same like as soon as you come through those gates and you're driving up there and you see it and you're like the first barrel house right there right as you come in and you're like holy smokes and it's just it's so interesting to me cuz like I mean I've been to around Indiana and you guys can go into some distilleries that are like maybe smaller and you're like so that you have this perception of Indiana distilleries of like oh it's going to be like a building with a still and like they're going to be making some small batch craft cocktails or whatever and then you go to hard truth and it's like oh holy like this is the real deal.
We're really fortunate to to have that piece of land and that property and you know the vision that my partners had for the experience there is is pretty incredible. And then on top of it, you know, now our whiskey is, you know, I've got our six-year um rye whiskey, which we'll also be featuring at the June event. Um our six-year sweet mash rye. We just released that this past Saturday. And you know, we're winning competitions, you know, global international competitions with our whiskey. So, you know, there is a lot there's this great robust thing that's happening in the world of whiskey in Indiana that really the world's starting to take note of.
So, we're we're we're uh proud to be a part of that. I gotta I gotta say that too. I'm sorry, but that sixth year I I've not gotten the pleasure to get I'm looking very forward into getting more into your stuff. That sixth year is probably the best whiskey I've ever had. I'm not joking. No, my dad, we grew up my dad was a whiskey guy.
I mean, that was all he drank. And he took me to Lynchberg tours. I got pictures of me like five in those walking those tours. And I'm telling you, man, that is some of the smoothest e easiest drinking whiskey that I think I've ever had. And I was a bartender for several years. I mean, I food and beveraged in the winters when I wasn't landscaping.
Kilroyy's on Kirkwood. Oh, shout out. So, you you could tell some stories. Some I could tell and some I shouldn't. Yeah. Right.
There we go. Um, well, gentlemen, this has been a super fun episode. We have some fun segment questions to round out here at the end. Obviously, and we we do have to talk about we talk about hidden gems. We're going to get to that in just a second. Before we get there, Dave, if you had to smoke one thing for the rest of your life, what would you smoke?
A truly good Wagu brisket has never broke my heart, man. It's never hurt my feelings. So, that's that's solid. I mean, you can't go wrong with good brisket. Yeah. Like, it's just it it always hits.
Brian, do you do you are you a smoker? So, starting out, Dave was talking about the primitive pits. So my dad and his buddies, you know, when they were going to do barbecue, they got cinder blocks and they built a pit, which is basically just a cube and then they had a piece of sheet metal on top and they had some grates. And so that's how they made barbecue. Um, so that's how I grew up starting to make barbecue. Then of course there are all these fancy smokers that hit the market.
Um, currently in my backyard, I don't have a covered space for a stick smoker, although that's my What's a So when So like you're burning actual wood. Yeah. Um, but you have to have a lot of airflow in order to do that correctly. Um, so right now I've got a, you know, like a ceramic komado style um, smoker, which is, you know, what I love to do is with whiskey, too. So, the first stills that we had were really difficult to work with, right? They weren't they were not easy to work with.
Yeah. If you can figure out how to make great whiskey on some very difficult skills, by the time you get the Cadillac or, you know, whatever, you're you're golden, right? So, same thing. The the the Komado smokers are difficult for me cuz I'm I'm a perfectionist to not get that over creassoded, oversmoked flavor on them. Um because you got to choke down the temperature. It's a whole thing.
Um so, I've I've been fiddling with it. I finally got it. my travels, you know, we distribute hard truth down in Texas. So, the first time I finally went down there, I was so sick of all my Texas friends telling me how good their barbecue was. I was like, I'm sure it's fine. Well, it's great.
Turns out it's a little bit better than fine. And especially like beef, ribs, and brisket. I mean, and so when I came home from that first trip, I was determined to, you know, absolutely perfect the beef ribs and the brisket. So yeah, I've got it. I've got it down in my backyard, but I can only make like this much. Yeah.
You know, for dinner, right? Yeah. Yeah. I guess that's from both of you. What advice would you have for let's say there were some fathers that got a smoker, you know, like their kids or, you know, whoever were like, you know, let's get dad a smoker, but maybe like doesn't quite know how to be an expert on it yet. What advice do you have for people that are just getting into smoking meats?
Patience, man. It's better to run low temperatures. And you know, that's the the one of the barbecue things. what time will it be done is when it's done, you know, and that's truly it's a lot of by feel. Um, it's not something that you can hammer through and rest. I think there it is like once you get to the level we got some techniques, the Texas crutch, wrapping in foil, you can speed stuff up, but in the beginning, man, just take your time.
Take your time with it. The Texas crutch, I love that. Any advice for barbecuers? Uh, you got to start with the best piece of meat that you can find. I mean, you know, that was that's one of the it's holds true with cooking, making whiskey. You know, you can you can have the best equipment and the best technique, but if you start with a a bad product to start with, um or you know, go go cheap on that, it's it's hard to make good u good barbecue.
So, I always splurge for for a nice piece of meat. And you really, especially when you're picking out a brisket, um you really got to take your time. If if you're only making one and you're and it's really important that it's perfect um to kind of find that right one that's got the right how do you know the right one like what what advice I'm gonna let the expert talk about that I'll tell you identify the right meat honestly I'll give you one that's pretty good that uh I can't remember who told me this but you know especially like a brisket if you pick up a brisket and it doesn't flop at all it's kind of like a New York pizza or something you want you want one that does flop that feels flimsy and I'll promise you that that one's going to cook and be a lot more tender. Um, but also, you know, a good good fat. You don't want one that's completely fat, but you don't want one that has no fat, you know.
And just like all that though, it's just as important at like the wood. I I heard Brian on another podcast talking about wood grown on two different hillsides that could give you a different effect, you know, just by the separation in the rings. And it's an ingredient. It's an ingredient in whiskey. Yep. And it's an ingredient in barbecue.
It's not just what you cook with. It's actually an ingredient and the alchemist would know like airflow all that mix it's it is a it is a movement man the whole thing you know if you don't have enough air you'll have thick chalky creassote smoke if you have too much air your fire is going to rage and burn everything so it's a what's the most forgiving meat to like start barbecuing where if you were like you're going to experiment you're going to try like yeah buying the Wagu brisket's a good idea in theory until you like screw up like a very expensive piece of meat. Pork butt. I think pork butt. Start there. Yeah.
You know, Boston butt. It's a, you know, it's the names always get, you know, people a butt, you know, they think a ham almost, but it's a shoulder. And, uh, there's a picnic shoulder usually has skin on, but a Boston butt is trimmed down and that's what you see in the grocery store the most. And, uh, that sucker, man, if you do, like I said, go low and slow. Usually I I'll tell you the the big secret to cooking a good pork butt. About four hours in the smoke, right?
Uncovered with your rub on it, in a pan or out of pan. I don't have a preference. I cook in pan so I catch all the drippings. But then you wrap it. And I know there's a lot of old school guys that are like finish over the fire the whole way. But a braise is to steam a meat or like you roast in that crock pot kind of technique.
So once you have that bark set, if you can touch the bark and it doesn't come off on your finger, it's set. And truly at that point, you're not really penetrating much more smoke. So as far as that flavor getting pounded into it, you're good to wrap. And then you save all that juice. And when you shred it, reintroduce that juice, buddy. That's the That's the money.
Wow. He just gave it he just revealed how to how to I'm going to impress some people using that technique. Um, gentlemen, we've come to the final portion of the show where I ask the same three questions that I ask everyone who sits in the chair. Can I tell you, I've already forgotten what those three questions are. So, now my brain I'm racking. I'm like, "Oh, crap.
I was We got to make sure you don't use the same one again." I won't. Um, okay. So, first off, let's go Dave. Yeah. What's something the world needs to know about Indiana?
Just who's your hospitality is a real thing, man. and uh growing up spent my whole life here and I've been fortunate to travel the country and kind of see how it is in other neighborhood stores and uh I don't think I'd trade this place. I have moved away and came back just because uh southern Indiana's got my heart, man. And I I think to that to that point with southern Indiana, I think that there's a perception on people who maybe haven't spent a lot of time in anywhere other than Indianapolis or maybe from between Indianapolis and Chicago. the the hardwood forests of Indiana are just shockingly beautiful. You know, I same thing.
I've got to go a lot of different places and see some unbelievable scenic beauty, whether it's Colorado or or out west, but when you're standing in Huge National Forest, like in the Charles CE wilderness area, and you're staring up at 100 foot tall trees and you're that canopy is so far up there, and there's all this environment between there and here, it's it's magical, man. It's there's no other place like it. I love that. Uh, well, that brings us to our next question. This is the question of all questions is what is a hidden gem in Indiana? I grew up thinking that all pizza was square cut cracker crust, right?
And I've learned since then that that was kind of migrated southward from Milwaukee and Chicago, that style of pizza making. And it was really designed to keep people drinking at the bar. They would they'd make these pizzas and set out these little squares and people grab the squares. didn't even cost anything, right? Almost like pretzels. Those are the good old days.
There is a there is a a a group of of uh pizza places in Evansville and there's somebody's name and then the word una. So it's Steve, Huffona, um Spanky Zuna, Covert Una Pizza, right? And these are shotgun buildings. You can't sit inside them. Carry out only or delivery. But there's one that's de near and dear to my heart.
Steve Zuna Pizza um right off Washington Avenue in uh or I'm sorry, yeah, Washington Avenue in uh in Evansville, Indiana. And it is my favorite pizza. In fact, every time I go back home, I go and get like four or five of them, half baked, no cut, wrap them in foil, and stick them in my freezer. Um that way if I need a pizza, and that's obviously it's better if you get it there. But yeah. Wow.
Steve's pizza. Steve's Una Spanky's Ununa Pizza. Una pizza. Yeah, Una 2 is one of the originals. Rockabar is a great one. Rockabar is one of the original Evansville pizzas.
Terrone's bucket list update. Yeah, in progress. Steve's Unona pizza. I'm going to I love all the other ones and I worked at Terrron and I love the folks at Rockabar. They make All those pizzas are great. But I've just got to say as a kid, you know, coming downstairs on Thursday night and my my dad would come home with Steve Zuna pizza always in paper.
Just rip the paper open. Always some pepperonchini peppers on top. You rip them and squirt that juice over top of the pizza. And let's go there now. Let's get in the car. Let's ride.
Uh, I have to ask Dave, what is a hidden gem in Indiana? Salsbury as a town is a pretty cool place. You got, you know, Yohos that we talked about right downtown. It's been uh remodeled, but they kept all of the the foundational pieces. What do you know about the history of the Yoho General Store? Yeah.
I mean, so when I was a kid, Cotton Yoho uh owned it, and I don't know who originated it, but him and his wife and it was a family ran. They were just farmers there. They live literally down the street. What a name. Yeah. Yeah.
Cotton yoh. Cotton yl and pearl. Cotton cotton and pearl, right? It doesn't get better than that. And then, you know, you've been to the tulip trestle is technically a Bloomfield address, but it's five miles from uh See, we called it cotton, and that was what it was called all those years. Really?
Well, so and then so people that know we went down there and I think that at first glance like people think, oh, this is just some small town like rundown store, but then recently and I don't know how long ago, but ownership changed. I think the Cook Community Foundation somehow got involved there and it's like a a historic like renovated, remodeled really nice place. Yeah. They kept the floors. They kept like the wood stove and then they kept the lineup you know the same classic food and you know and that's what you know as kids if your parents took you there where there were two things you got from cotton a glass Coke bottle and a scoop of ice cream and so I'm pretty sure I know you can still get the ice cream. I'd have to check on the I don't know if they have the glass Coke still, but like let's say if you were like a jeeper or like you drove motorcycles, like you know, go swing down through there, make a trip down to the trestle.
The local people I put I put something about the tulip trestle and I got some backlash that I didn't talk to locals cuz it's called the viadec. Yeah, the viadec. Some of them swear it's one of the eighth wonders of the world, too, cuz for a long time it was the longest uh landbridge. Yeah. I guess in the world, man. But they like the the Facebook the Facebook heroes.
Like the keyboard warriors got really upset. This guy didn't even talk to any locals. Like he's calling it the tulip trestle. It has its own like historical society. So they built Did you see the uh there's like the platform you can the observation deck and uh but dude Salsbury has done a lot of things. There's a sculpture trail.
It's a really cool thing. And they poured Yeah, they do pores. Yep. Jerry Massie is a good friend of mine. Yeah, we poured uh aluminum there. It's you do the the sand scratch.
You go to the nighttime port, put it on your list, dude. Night time. You need to check it out. It's a mile from my house, too. It's like the middle of July or October, I don't know when it is, but it's like they do a night. They have these huge are they called Foundaries, I think, or not foundaries.
Uh yeah. No, that's it. Is that what the name of them? But they get it like these are they're pouring tons like in a year. They bring people they bring 25 interns from around the world. Yeah, the house property for the summer to pour aluminum and pour metal.
It's crazy. They're they're a special breed. Those guys, man, they're hardcore. They're like Yeah. built different for sure. I love it.
This that's a great just Soulsberry in general. That's a great in. You do have to share what you guys know about the fireworks show. What What is it? Yeah, we were talking about that before we got on air here. So, I was I was telling Dave when he said he was from Salsbury that I the opportunity to witness a fireworks show in Salsbury on the back of my truck sometime in the late 90s.
Oh, boy. And the best time play live music there. Yeah. And I I'll never forget that they was they were like, "Yeah, this is like it's kind of put on by the town, but but it's right by the fire station because they want every have everything ready." It was the most incredible fireworks show maybe I've seen anywhere. and it was in the middle of the woods in Salsbury house parties.
So, you know, it's a rural area, but when you come into downtown Salsbury, it's it's a blink and miss at town, but dude, you could walk for probably five miles and it just be party after party after party at every house. They would they used to say, and I don't know what the metric was, but it was like 25,000 people would come down for this show, dude. Well, the the unofficial count was 40% of the city's annual budget was spent on fireworks. We can neither we can neither confirm or deny that that is a true number. But 25,000 like and to put it in scale like I think Soulsbury is eight blocks. Yeah.
Like the entire town is eight blocks. Maybe that could be generous. I mean the show would go for like 30 minutes, dude. And they would have epic epic finales too. I mean it was a good show. I love that.
That's uh that's so fun. We might need to do a best fireworks show. Like I might need to do a video and then like say like you know honorable mention. I don't know if it's still go cuz it's not still going anymore, is it? Well, I love the guys that are at the station now, but Larry Shu was a guy and that would uh if I would name the Hoosier, he's he's passed on now, but Larry is the guy that got the observation deck built. He was like we called him the mayor of Salsbury.
He was the fire chief forever. Uh really cool dude. There's a lot of cool uh Herald Time articles on Larry. You should look it up. When he passed, man, I think it all kind of just kind of went down. I think that this I we kind of hit a little tangent here at the end, but I love it.
Um, so much of what makes rural or small town Indiana great is usually like one or two or three like spark plugs in the community to like make this stuff happen. You know, a 28-year-old. Uh, it's like our generation to like link up with and like learn from some of these people like Larry. like go spend time around there and then you know when they transition out like carry some of these traditions on because it's so cool and it's sad to see some of these awesome things uh fall to the wayside. It's that's really interesting and what I'm thinking about is, you know, sometimes our life now with with how fast everything moves and with the information um loop, you know, things become very transactional. But just like in that in that with Salsbury fireworks show, something that's totally unnecessary, un unexpected, and unreasonable can really be something that brings a lot of people a lot of joy.
There's there's no reason why they should have done that, right? But it's something that people have talked about and will continue to talk about um forever. So I think we we should do more things like that. Yeah. And like Brian, as soon as you said you'd been to like you guys like had just like a deeper connection based on the fact that you both knew this fireworks show from the mid to late 90s. Like that's super cool to me.
I love it. U final thing we round out with is this is how I learn about new guests or just hear about people maybe around southern Indiana that that need to be on our radar. So we'll go Brian first. Who's a Hoosier that we need to keep on our radar? Someone who's doing big things. So, I thought about, you know, the barbecue space.
Who is somebody? Because, you know, the barbecue scene in Indiana is very under the radar. And if you start following these national championships uh and world titles, there's a guy named Albi Ransom and he's down in Booneville area. Uh Scuffletown Smokers. If if somebody asked me today who's the goat in Indiana barbecue, it's Albi for sure. I mean, Bill, what's his name?
Albi. A LB Y. Albi Ransom. Albi Ransom in Booneville is the goat of Indiana barbecue. Scuffle town smoker. So, a couple weeks ago he won uh the KCBS World Invitational in Nashville, Tennessee.
And uh I think I'm pretty sure that he won the Jack Daniels Invitational last year. So that's a world championship. It's a invitational type thing. So I mean and you know I see him when I go we go to the American Royal 900 teams. Who do I see at the t-shirt stand? Albi down there collecting hardware.
So Albi Ransom. Yep. Scuffle town smokers. Scuffle towns. I think that's a little Isn't that a little region down by the river? I believe they, you know, I never got the full story, but they've got a shirt that says something about it on the back there.
Yeah, I think that used to be what they called one of those those river camps, river camp areas down on the Ohio River. It's him and his dad, man. I'm telling you. And it's, you know, and I always love to see that. Well, you know, and we talk about all of it. When I almost got unmotivated, then we got Royal Oak, my dad passed.
And, uh, dude, he just missed all the coolest stuff. Oh, yeah. And it was like we talk about that how, you know, he we're still standing on the foundation. Dad was retired from IU, but dude, he never missed a beat when I everybody thought I was losing my mind going to build the food truck cuz the whole family thought when I said I was going to build the cabin, they thought I'd lost it. But so to see Albby and his dad have that and it's a very common theme at barbecue stuff. A lot of lot of family teams, they're killing it.
But that's a that's one that you should keep your eye on. And and what a cool way to spend time like with your family like as adults like you get together and you're like, you know, smoking meats and hanging out and like going and competing. It's like that's pretty fun. Yeah. All right. Do we do we have one?
You know, I'm going to I'm going to go with something fresh on my uh brain and it's actually a place that that you did a little bit of a feature on um down in Jasper, Indiana. So Allan, who owns the schnitlebunk um in Jasper, Indiana, I just uh they picked a single barrel with us. I spent some time down there. I've got a lot I grew up as a little kid, my grandma would take me to Schnitzelbon like couple times a month and um so I I grew up grew up going there, right? And we kind of made this connection about, you know, our toast coconut rum that we make at Hard Truth and was based on my grandmother's coconut cream pie recipe. That was my inspiration.
And my grandmother's coconut cream pie recipe was inspired by the Schnitzelbunks coconut cream pie. And so then they're they're serving that toast coconut rum down there. And we kind of made that full circle. Hadn't even occurred to me until I was sitting there talking with Allan. So I'm I think I'm going to put my person is Allan. Um the owner Schnitlebunk.
I know they're just getting ready to uh they just rehab their Glocken spiel and they're going to have this big grand unveiling. So, if you've been to the Schnitzelbunk, right up there on the top of the tower, it's almost like if you look at a cuckoo clock and those uh mechanicals where the the the the figurines dance and go around. So, they actually had it's this huge there's only like one person in the world who works on those. And so, they finally have got it fixed and they're going to unveil it later this month. And unfortunately, I'm going to be out of town. I won't be able to be there.
Um, so you're telling me the Glock and Shiel at the Schnitzelbach in Jasper is is going to be back to functional. It is coming back. I want to say it's June 26th. They're going to do a whole thing down there. Um, but it's just a cool place. I, you know, I still their salad bar.
I I mean, the rest of food's great, too, but every time I go down there, I hammer that salad bar. Isn't it funny that like that's what the recommendation that we got from like so many people when we were down there is you have to get the salad bar. There's like 25 handmade cold salads, you know, like like cucumber salads and macaroni salads and stuff that everyone is just absolute perfection. Um, so anyways, I'm going to I'm my person's going to be Allan for, you know, owner Schnitzelbang for for keeping that place going. It's just a it's a gym here in Indiana. Heck yeah.
I love it. Gentlemen, thank you for coming on and sharing. We're going to see y'all. Well, one event in June. What are the dates on that one? So June 28th is going to be the Charred Truth Live Fire um qualifier round for the World Food Championships.
You can get tickets at hardtruth. com. Again, with that one, there's two levels of tickets. Both will be great, but definitely the the one that's the more expensive is going to come with a lot more um tastings of Hard Truth and a lot more intimate time with the Pit Masters. And then the weekend of July 25th, 26th, we're taking over Brown County, gentlemen. It's gonna be so much fun.
We're gonna have the Get Indiana crew down there. We're going to be at Hard Truth. We're at 31 Pitmasters squaring off. It's going to be a smoke show, bro. We have like tons of live music. It's going to be a great time.
We'll see you down there. You can get your tickets on hardtruth. com. We also have an article on Get Indiana and I think Brown like visit Brown County has an art like there are if you can't find your tickets to this event, I you might need to seek help. There's plenty there's plenty of opportunities there. We'll see you all down there.
Appreciate you guys coming on. Thanks so much, Nate. Thank you for listening to this episode of Get In. If you like what you heard, make sure you leave us a review wherever you listen to podcast. This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at sweetwater.
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