Speaker 1:

Malcolm can agree to this. One of the, one of the best compliments when he would get that call up on stage, you know, you put good barbecue down today. That's right. I'll tell you. I mean, really I'm, I'm a foodie. I just like good food. And I like to be able to make it, share it with people and watch them enjoy it. That's my drive to, I think, I mean, you know, I love there's nothing better than someone trying your stuff and telling you how great it is or taking one of your recipes and impressing their friends or feeding their family with it. I mean, that's, to me, that's why I do what I do. I've always said of one person, watch it. I'll keep I can videos. This is the meat America podcast presented by code three spices produced by red meat lover. Now your host, Joey and Mike.

Speaker 2:

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the meet America podcast presented by code three spices. I want to thank our sponsors. Grill grate at grill, grate.com, Rockwood charcoal@rockwoodcharcoal.com and many retailers across the U S as well as art and spirits. We're here today at old Harold distillery. And for those of you who don't know me, I'm Joey AKA, Joey brisket, AKA Joey chipmunk cheeks, AKA the chief people officer at red meat, lover.com and red meat lover on YouTube. I want to introduce my cohost microdose Vich of code three spices.com. How you doing brother, buddy? We're excited about this one, right? Yes. And I'll let you take and introduce our guests from here. Sure. So today, everybody we are with the man that really doesn't need introduction. This is Malcolm Reed from Alibaba. He writes, I'm also excited today because this is the first time we're introducing my partner, Chris bone Meyer right here. My right. Um, he's my partner in crime. Uh, we're just going to get right into it. Uh, Malcolm, are you how we doing today?

Speaker 1:

Doing fantastic, man. How we doing today? Good,

Speaker 2:

Good deal. So we're going to talk about some of these

Speaker 1:

Rocks in front of us in the next segment, but Joey, why don't we just start off with

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. So, I mean, you guys are really well known in the business. I mean, Malcolm Gira, YouTube. Oh gee. When I'm in online forums, you know, when people are talking about their online barbecue knowledge, your name is consistently shared as a resource, the resource for barbecue knowledge. So really where I want to start this conversation today with both of you guys is, you know, uh, tell us a little bit more about where did your journey into barbecue began and in Malcolm, I'll let you kind of answer that first.

Speaker 1:

Well, I started out me and my brother had a barbecue and killer hogs. That's where we get the name for it, you know, our products and all that, but it was competition barbecue that was knowing the town. I live right outside of Memphis, a little town called Salud. Mississippi is where I was born and raised up. They had a little pre contest or, you know, all those little towns have warmup contest back in the day for Memphis in may. Uh, Memphis in may actually had like a sanction kind of like KCBS where they had a contest all over. And I think there was even some up here in Illinois and some Mike Mills don't segmentation, but they do a big one down there, but that's how we started. We started doing competitions and, um, you know, it kind of led to, uh, meeting my wife at a barbecue, you know, and she knows, she decided I needed a website and we, uh, so she's kind of my partner in the how to barbecue right business it's me and her. And, uh, we kinda started doing our thing and helping spread the word about barbecue and never really had a plan, but it just kinda grew into what it is, man. So we've had a lot of fun with it.

Speaker 3:

That's awesome. That's I want to dig a little bit more into that story here in just a minute, but Chris, how did you get started? What was your first step into the world of barbecue?

Speaker 1:

Well, I first up was, it was after college. I got up early one morning, turned on the TV and Steven [inaudible] was on a barbecue university and I sat there mesmerized watching him make ribs. And that exact same day I went out, bought whoever, got a rack of ribs, cooked my first one ever. And I've been hooked ever since. Um, we started, you know, we started doing backyard competitions. Uh, I created our five rub. That's what we were using and we won some trophies with it and you know, some of the guys would compete against said, Hey, I'll, I'll buy it. If you bottle it up, we thought, what kind of great ideas this, yeah, we bottled it. And you know, people started selling it and then we got it into stores and we made a website and it's just kind of taken off from there. I mean, it was the same thing. We didn't really have a plan, but somehow it worked out really well for it. So,

Speaker 3:

Well, you've touched a little bit about that kind of starting influence of Malcolm. What was a, a beginning influence? I know you talked about, uh, the killer hogs team, but what was it really that first step into like, I like to cook? I mean, was there a strong influence for you?

Speaker 1:

I mean, you know, growing up, we did my, we were always events centered around the kitchen or food. That was the way my family was. And I mean, it's like, you know, every holiday in the summer, 4th of July Memorial day, labor day, they're always big barbecues. And so I never looked at it as a kid coming up and say, Hey, this is something I want to do the rest of my life. But just being in and out of kitchens, mom's cook. Grandma's good. Dad's run the grill. This is part of life where, you know, for me. And so it was kind of natural. Um, honestly, I guess we got into the competitive part of it because it's a fun party. And that's what we used to do. I mean, killer hogs was known that we might not win the contest. We're going, gonna throw the baddest party.

Speaker 1:

And there was a time when I said, um, I won't even do competitive barbecue. If I can't throw a party, it was like, my brother was off serious, man. We got to really try and do this. I said, man, I don't care about these trophies. I don't care about any of this. This is just fun. You know, it's like a frat party or so I'm telling you until you start winning trophies, the first one we won, it was like, I want to say it's red beans and rice, not ancillary. Nothing was like, it's just all crazy. And then I remember we got our first like rib call and then from the, now we did get serious and the team broke up and it was just cause you know, you have 40 team members when you're building walls out of kegs, you know, that's like, everybody wants to do it.

Speaker 1:

Nobody wants to set up. Nobody wants to break down. Right. And nobody wants to foot the bill. So I think that's one of the most attractive things about the world of competition, barbecue, Joe, I know you haven't really delve into it too much. You've been around it a lot, but you haven't really delved into it. Like we have the attract the thing about competition, barbecue. One, it is the competition, but two is the comradery, right? And from a competitor standpoint and Chris, you can talk about this. Chris is the head dude. When it comes to the competition side of code three spices in the beginning, I was helping, I was doing this. I was doing that. I do ancillaries and whatnot, but to get a call the first time you're sort of hooked, right? Without a doubt. I mean, believe it or not on Facebook, my Facebook memories this morning popped up our first GC seven years ago.

Speaker 1:

Wow. Just popped up this morning. Yeah. I mean, you win one trophy. You want to win them all. As soon as you get that first, you know, you go home, you're going to get your butt whipped a couple of times where you kind of figure stuff out. But yeah, it's, there's a reason I don't judge this cause I can't skip the competition part. Well, and the other thing is too. I think it's a humbling experience when you're getting two, three, four weekends in a row. You know, I remember whenever you made some changes on some ribs and you know, he, wasn't too fun to be around at the shop for three or four weeks. Cause he's just highly competitive in nature. And so am I, you know, so I mean, that's the one part of the, or one aspect of the, the barbecue competition world.

Speaker 1:

But the thing that I love the most about the barbecue competition world is the camaraderie. The people that you meet, there's you just, you're friends with everybody. It's the best way to put it. That's the way to put aside for those little turn in window everybody's enemies before and after man, KCBS, you know, st. Louis barbecue society, there's the same 40, 45 teams. We all traveled together every weekend. So, you know, when you hit off season that to get to that first comp in the spring, so awesome. Cause it's like a family. Are you going to see together?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, no. I mean, you, you nailed it. I am really new to the world, sort of an outsider. My first experience in the world of barbecue was when I went up to the NBB QA event, national barbecue and grilling association has an annual conference. It was in Kansas city two years ago and I went up, I have a background in real estate. I've been to a lot of real estate conferences. But one thing that really struck me is exactly what you guys are talking about. I saw the experts from Texas sharing brisket tips with the guys, from Kansas city, the guys from Kansas city, we're giving the guys from Texas tips on how to make burnt ends. And I thought I was just really taken back by the humbleness, uh, the sense of community that existed within the barbecue world. It really took me back.

Speaker 1:

I think that's probably the best way to sum up the barbecue world as a sense of community, right. Everything we do, whether it's smoking on main or any event you traveled to any event you traveled to, it's usually charity based, right? Yeah. It's usually giving back to something or someone in their community. You know, that's another beautiful aspect about the

Speaker 4:

Explore, the methods and recipes for cooking neat in restaurants, across America. As we showcase experts on location in their restaurant kitchens to educate, inspire, and entertain tune into our travel cooking show, meet America only on YouTube and red meat, lover.com.

Speaker 3:

So I want to talk a little bit, you know, you guys have had some success in the world of barbecue. Chris, I want to ask you, I know that you've gotten really big with these steak Cookoff association events where you're going in and you've won a couple of golden tickets, right. And that's basically the candidate,

Speaker 1:

The last two, there were onstage championship championship where you went last

Speaker 3:

Shear. And where did you place in that

Speaker 1:

Competition? So there were, uh, 200 and 300, 290 teams. And, uh, in order to qualify for the finals, you gotta be in the top 60 on day one. Uh, I think I was ninth in my group. Uh, they split you into six groups and then we went into finals day and uh, they called the top 15 and I was number 12. Congratulations,

Speaker 3:

Man. That's incredible. So what's been, can you tell our audience a little bit of the difference between, you know, being a part of a competition, barbecue that maybe can last a full weekend, right? Um, versus the steak Cookoff association events, what kind of fuels your desire to find that recipe for the perfect

Speaker 1:

It's it's back to the competition again. I'm I'm so competitive. I just can't, I can't stop it. Um, but I'll tell you, I mean, barbecue competitions, you start on Monday or Tuesday prepping for the entire weekend and you're doing something every single day, going into the weekend difference in state Coke offices, you show up with a tent and a grill and season

Speaker 3:

Some beer. I think you guys got that out,

Speaker 1:

But just so Johnny Joseph knows we don't drink until after the steak has turned out.

Speaker 4:

[inaudible]

Speaker 1:

No, but you roll in, um, you know, stakes are provided, so everybody's on the same playing field. Um, you go through and you do a draft, you know, three hours later, you turn a stake in and an hour later, they call the winners and you go home. It's uh, it's completely different. I mean, the, the, the process, the recipe process is the same as barbecue, but the timeline is way faster and it's, it's done. And what, what would you say? Four or five hours. Oh yeah, you're finished. So you're on your way home quick Saturday. That's why you see a lot of them do doubles. Now, all these RCAs are doing doubles. They'll have two events in the same day. Then they'll go somewhere the next day and do another one or two. And you can think there's one, that's really three days, three days. There's a couple of them. It's up in Iowa. Mason city. Yup. Yeah, they do six contests in three days.

Speaker 5:

Let me take over real quick, Joe. So, you know, we've been doing this for about a decade now. Both of us, um, SCA really just started taking off a couple of years ago, maybe three years ago, the first sea cook I did was in incident. No, uh, stockyards down in Dallas, Fort worth and then be QA. And I loved it because it was quick, like you were talking about, but what do you guys think is the outside of the saving time and that, you know, preparing all week for a two day cook, what does SCA doing right right now? And why are people going crazy over this and getting involved?

Speaker 1:

Oh, one, I think it's the cost of entry is way less. So anybody with a grill can show up and cook [inaudible] cooking source. So really what it comes down to that it's affordable and anybody can cook a steak and they are really great at listening to their cooks problems come up. They're not scared to change the way things are done. I think we've talked about this. Yeah.

Speaker 5:

I was just going to hit on that. So like last night we, we had to sit down and have dinner over at Sloan's. It was air conditioned. Thank God. And the Moscow mules were going down.

Speaker 1:

It was pretty high by the way. [inaudible]

Speaker 5:

I though it was like, um, you know, you've got, well, the whole group or the whole organization is fantastic, but you got Ken and, and Brett. Right. And there's just, and everybody's surrounded with these guys. They're all classic people. They care about competitors and they care about the sport, you know? And I think this is really this, just the beginning for SCA and the popularity

Speaker 1:

Five minutes, you're talking international contest all over the world. Yeah. I think last year when I went to Fort worth for the championship, I was cooking next to the Japanese, uh, champion. Uh, the guys next to me on the other side were from the Netherlands. I mean, Australia, there's people from everywhere. And it's, I think it's because, you know, like he said, the low cost, um, you know, most entries are 150 bucks. Um, you can cook on anything. I saw a guy in Fort worth, had a, had a grill on the bottom with a microwave, with a whole cutout. That's hilarious. That's how you're spoken. So you can use anything. You can find Jimmy's room right on it. I mean, you know, you could use whatever you're talking about. You're talking a $30 set up,

Speaker 5:

Grill race. One of our sponsors here, and we love Brad and his wife. Um, great people. I personally think it's the best aftermarket accessory on the market. Hands down. I've got girl grades all the time. I've got 10 or 11 girls in my backyard right now. And I've got sets that fit all of them. Um, strictly for, you know, I like the aspect that there's no flare ups and you can control with a good charcoal. You can control that heat source right there. The

Speaker 3:

Fire management, super easy real grades. I mean, do you guys agree? Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Oh, the whole Harlem, no flare up the sear marks the high heat. I mean, flip them over and use it as a kind of a grid, a little, I mean, they're great. I mean, you've got all these other products coming to market now that we're going to get into here in a second,

Speaker 3:

Um, like duck fat spray, um, you know, the, the evolution of barbecue with a steak cook off and pellet grill is taken over the industry or being introduced in the industry. You know, we have a barbecue supply right across the road and we don't have only men anymore coming in our shop. We have tons of women coming in that are picking up,

Speaker 1:

Well, it's picking up charcoal, they're doing the cooking themselves.

Speaker 3:

You know? So I think the pellet industry is allowed, um, a lot of things,

Speaker 1:

People to get into it, especially with COVID and everything everybody's cooking at home, you know? Um, so I mean, that's a good thing for barbecue at night then. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you named some great products right there, and I think that's a great segue into some questions I had for you two gentlemen about, you can see if you're watching this, you can see the whole host of products that are available, but, um, and I'll let you guys talk a little bit more about your individual products here shortly. But my question is, I mean, look, there's, there's so much inspiration in your success and origin stories and knock them. We're going to dig a little bit more into your origin story in another podcast. I'm really excited to share that with everyone listening at home, but can you tell us how you kind of transitioned from, Hey, I'm out here having a good time at these competition barbecues, having a blast to all these products we see up here today.

Speaker 1:

So ours was a lot like Chris, we were making our rub to go to contest. So I would always make a batch up or my brother would make a batch up. Every refresher batch for every contest we would go to and people started asking us, Hey, y'all making rub, you know, can I get a pound? And we'd start selling a little bit here and there. And, um, it just so happens. It was about the time of the recession and I'd gotten laid off my job and me and Rochelle had started a website and I was like, well, you know, we're thinking about selling his rubs. So, um, we ordered up some bottles from Ulan. I think it was. And I started mixing it bootleg style on the kitchen table, getting a label. I got a buddy that had like a sign shop and maybe some peel and stick labels.

Speaker 1:

And I got a heat gun and I would know, fill up bottles or rub and pedal. And then it got to be to where it was enough to where I could go talk to the co-packer. And, you know, I remember when I, this was like, so I went back to work cause you know, their session kind of lifted and construction took bike off. And then we went through another drop in commercial construction. I got laid off again at another company. I was like, screw it. I got a little severance pay. And I said, I'm going to buy that first, big order up. I think I had about 500 pounds Bob. And I was like, I don't know how we're going to. We had a garage full of rub and Russia. I told Rochelle, we got enough money to make it like six months. I think it was like savings and that was going to be it.

Speaker 1:

So it was like, we're going to be homeless. We don't make it. So we never looked back. And then that's what led to all developing all these other products. And I mean, they were all just developed in the kids. I still got the table. I used to make some money out of the bowl, but I remember the first time I was over at his house, I had like a half day or a half shift, whatever reason. And he went down to was the Seward market. We're not $300 bill, all these spices. And I come over to his house and there's not room on this table. I'm like, I have no idea what the hell is going on here, but I'm just going to roll with it. You know, I wish I had a video of the way we used to do it because I would have, you know, how you got all your different stuff.

Speaker 1:

And I probably had 30 different things in mind at the time and every little cup. So I'd stack them all up and put them in one big bowl and get done to make a batch and spread them out. And I get my seasons and I have been all ones and I do dumps and mics and dumps medics. And there was a process that I'd kept that I should have kept that paper. I wrote the recipe on it. Cause it was like a quarter teaspoon plus one eight. Cause you just it, and then you taste it and you're like, Oh no, I need more of this. And so it was all added. I had a little, little formula written down on a piece of paper and it, uh, like the five Oh rubs still. I have an old laptop and the recipe is still still on my laptop, but that's, you know, that's the one thing that we could talk about before we go over these products right here.

Speaker 1:

You know, we said this in a past episode, a lot of people, and I've heard you say this work to allow people to just throw a bunch of stuff in a bottle, put a label on it and say, okay, we're going to sell us. We don't rush anything in the market. You know, he's very analytical. And I do a lot of backyard cooking with the stuff he's coming up with. He does a lot of cooking at home and I'm telling you what, just when you think you have it, right, we try it one way or cook it a different way. If something's off, we scrap it. And he's back to the table. We're working on our steak row. I told you about that, that steak rub. And we thought we had it perfect. I took it home, put it on stage blend, this thing I've ever read. And I was like, Oh, back to the drawing board.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I mean, as, as any business owners, you grow your business and Malcolm, you touched on it and I just want to acknowledge you for it. Right. It takes real courage and perseverance. And I think that there's this idea that, um, courage is really the lack of fear, but it's not. You talked about how you used your entire severance pay. That takes courage, you know, and it's, it's the presence of fear. The fear is there, but courage says I'm going forward anyway. I believe in it. And that is just such a cool thing. I want to acknowledge you for Chris. I, I know as a, from our previous conversations, both with you and Mike, that you know that there's always kind of growing pains, courage that you're going to need to move forward. Can you kind of share one of your biggest challenges in starting the company and coming up with that first, Hey, that guy had a competition, barbecue who wants to buy this stuff to growing to where you're at today and Mike that's really for you to, what's been a big challenge for you guys and the biggest challenge. I'm sure there's many.

Speaker 1:

I think it's really just dealing with the growth, the sizing. Um, you know, when we started it out, I had a, an SUV, our first door, we still have a picture of that. The first order we ever got, I went right in the back of my SUV. And uh, I remember talking to our manufacturer and he said, you know, I know you guys have big dreams, but a lot of guys come in they'll order once and they never order again. And, uh, you know, to this day now we're ordering truckloads. And you know, I, I called our manufacturer, got a palette from him. And then about three days later, I called him again and said, I need another pallet. And he goes, how can you need another one? And I was like, I'm not, I'm not joking. When I say we went through this already, it's gone. And so it's figuring out the logistics of how to grow from the back of your SUV to a tractor trailer, um, you know, trucking logistics, um, getting it to retail stores, um, you know, mom and pops, you know, when we started, we went to high, a hundred, right. A hundred stores around the area just to get it into stores. I'll say it now. Cause he's gonna have to go ahead and say 99 of them said yes. I said, no, it was the one he sold. [inaudible]

Speaker 1:

that was fun though. We looked back on that stuff now. And I think what goes along with that is you've got the persevere on the side of it, but you know, I think it was podcast. Number one, we spoke briefly about it. There's a lot of people in our industry, you have to differentiate yourself, your products have to be fantastic and you have to be January as well. Uh, cause like I said, you're going up against the Durkee. McCormick's less sweet baby Ray's or Ken's foods now. Um, you know, and they have ways to price their products very low compared to what our cost is, you know? And you've got to move a lot of products, but in moving a lot of products with Chris was just talking about, you know, this is baby steps. We're, we've been in, we're gonna be eight years old here in November.

Speaker 1:

And it's 12 to 16 hour days every day for the last seven and a half years. You know? So what he's getting at is basically you're going to run into so many trials and tribulations. It really comes down to how bad you want it, you know, because this is all Chris and I have, we we've developed this baby and watched them grow and seven half year old, you know, but I think you can attest that as well because you know, we're at a point where we've gone through, I'd say three major growth stages in the last probably three years and we're hitting a peak or we're hitting a spike right now where we're playing catch up. We're trying to make things happen just to say on cue to make everything feasible, to get product out. Are we doing, we went through the same time. We started out in our garage, you know, on the kitchen table, shipping out of the garage, going into a mini storage and then, you know, them renting a small building. And now we're to the fulfillment center out in Oklahoma where majority of our stuff comes from and we still have to have a building for all the other stuff that we do. We've got a couple of employees now and it's just, you know, it's, it takes time. We call it the art of getting rich slow. We're not, we're not there yet. Well, slow play,

Speaker 5:

Gotta diversify yourself in the world of barbecue. You know, we have a barbecue supply. He competes a lot. We do classes, we have our retail side, we have our online side and you know, can't say too much, you have a, we're working on some other things that diversify herself. Um, one thing that I do love about our industry being community is there's a lot of great products on the market. We had a long conversation about this last night. I always say this. Chris always says that we're not the only kids on the block. We've got great products, but there's a lot of other great products out there too, you know? So I just want to sort of start off with a couple of your buddies from your neck of the woods. The first one we got there, he handed over to you. Chris, tell us a little bit about mojo. So we just have his beat here today.

Speaker 1:

This Tennessee mojo does my buddy, Jay Darvin's drug he's from McNairy County, Tennessee, which if anybody knows anything about Maine, they're kind of, they've probably heard of Buford Buster. He was a law enforcement famous sheriff there. Well, that's where Jay's from. And uh, he's uh, you know, he he's just into competition barbecue. That's how I met him through it. We had a mutual friend from up in that area. My family's actually from up that way, my nerd County. And so, um, just, we became buddies and competition barbecue and he got into making his seasonings and I got him hooked up with a co-packer and, and now he's, uh, he's he mainly does Instagram, but he just started a YouTube channel to where he's done videos. And he's a heck of a competition. Barbecue cook ass steak.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. He's just a super talented guy. He has some of the best pictures on it.

Speaker 1:

Well he's he's yeah. And he's not a photographer. He just does it as a hobby with he's does an amazing work with a camera.

Speaker 5:

This is a beef rib right here. I've actually used this with some of our products and your products. This really is a fantastic rod. It's got a nice balance to it. Um,

Speaker 1:

I like his poor CRA he won a Memphis of my ribs that his other robe is.

Speaker 5:

Yeah, he's got some fantastic stuff.

Speaker 1:

That's where I met Jay, was that he's the defending rib champion. Memphis in may.

Speaker 5:

This one, I like a lot. I like the sweetness of this. This is a Mississippi grind and swine line a little bit.

Speaker 1:

Let's say Swan lost Mark and Jamie Williams and they're from my hometown. So we're, we're kind of like family. Yeah. And we run together and they, uh, you know, they got into competition barbecue by coming to one of our classes. I'll never forget, uh, Mark and signed up. And then his brother, Jamie, who now works. That was my wholesale manager now called me up. It's probably been, Oh man, six, five, six years ago. And wanting to know if the price he was paying for that class was going to be worth it because he didn't want to waste his money. And I said, Hey, it's I had to meet him. Like they called me out. So I like took somebody with me. I said, I don't know who these guys are. You know, that wasn't me. I was like, okay, we're going somewhere public. We're not going to collect TGI Fridays or something. And like, these guys think I'm doing, man. I'm just, just teaching them how to cook barbecue. It ended, they ended up really starting to barbecue team. Do it really well. And then Jamie, Jamie runs Milo now.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. His YouTube channel is really picking up. [inaudible]

Speaker 1:

Mark's doing a great job. It's coming a long ways. They hadn't been in the game very long, but they're, you know, they've got some really good there. They've got two seasons now that's, that's their original, uh, what's it called? The grind.

Speaker 5:

This one's the grind. The other one is the grit. Grit. Yeah. This kind of more of an AP type

Speaker 1:

Purpose. That one. I like it because it has a little bit of citrus tones to it, but it's kind of, you know, it's got some really good barbecue flavor too. So

Speaker 5:

We're going to go into yours next. Um, we're after this real quick. So we were as long as last night and this is our new release top gun

Speaker 1:

Wings. It was, I told him when he tasted out of the bottle, I said, that's going to be amazing on chicken. Okay.

Speaker 5:

Why don't you tell everybody sort of how he came up with this, how long it took and what sort of your direction was going with us?

Speaker 1:

Well, the, the initial reaction was we needed a, uh, chicken rub, savory and herbs, something like that. Um, we took probably four months, five months that we've been working on this. Um, we had our manufacturer makeup, a concoction, and then the herbs were too big. So we had them grind those down and then there wasn't enough salt. Then there was too much salt. Um, but we were kind of just aiming for an herb savory kind of flavor. And, and now out of all the ones we've created, I'm pretty proud of that one.

Speaker 5:

Not only that, I mean, you know, we were doing this straight as a chicken design, right? Well, we started messing with steaks and veggies and seafood and everything else, and it really is just going to everything blend. And that's why we ended up calling it and everything blend. Now, Malcolm, you said last night that you enjoy this on some steaks, sometimes this is our grunt rub, garlic Lynn. Um, what's, what's your opinion of the flavor profile and what do you like about that?

Speaker 1:

I love it. I use it not only on rib Basel and cooking steaks, but also like an on prime rib or whole beef tenderloins, because it's got such coarseness to, it kind of goes with my steak seasoning and they both play together, but that one has the garlic notes in it. It's delicious. I mean, I liked, I liked the art. It's got some ARBs too. You can tell they're in their minutes. It's good stuff.

Speaker 5:

What was your direction with this in the beginning? Because I remember when we first got this, I mean, all of our products, we use sea salt, turbinado all high end ingredients, but the course of the summit, it was that your idea from the beginning?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. I mean there's, well, the whole idea is there's a lot of, you've got an AP row, uh, you know, or night out cosmos. Um, I wanted something that was more of a, instead of just a dust, like our top gun rub or, you know, just a regular rub. I wanted something that was kind of like prime rib texture. Yeah. It gives you some texture to it. And um, yeah, I mean sea salt, garlic, uh, some herbs. I mean, there's, it's just good. I mean, I use it on grilled vegetables, um, chicken, it's good on steak. It's good on, it's just kind of an all around. You can use it for anything, you know what I'm using on this really good to put a little olive oil and baked potato and the outside with that and roast them. Oh, you know, I actually don't tell you, I took some olive oil and some, uh, chopped up Bazell and some ground rub and I put it in the olive and I let it sit for two days and I infuse that garlic, basil flavor in there and put it on a, on a whole ribeye. Yeah, it was fantastic. The other thing that you can do with this, for people listening to the home, as we put this in a coffee grinder, and in my opinion, it magnifies the flavor. And I like using this as a finishing dust on wings. If I want to do like a garlic parm wing as well, it brings out the black pepper when you grind.

Speaker 2:

I just want to mention too. It's not just for red meat because I did some pan seared shrimp last week, and that's what I busted out. And it turned out terrific with a little bit of a lemon juice in there, olive oil butter. And that's what I went to. So I just wanted to point that out that I've been using it on seafood and really enjoy the flavor, bro.

Speaker 1:

When that, when grant rev came out, it actually said, uh what'd we have on there, steak, steak rub, it was state rep. And then we noticed that people weren't, they would only buy it if they were buying steaks. And so we changed it to garlic blend and all of a sudden the sales went through

Speaker 2:

[inaudible]

Speaker 1:

And we found out that it's said seafood on it. And we were only selling it during the lint

Speaker 2:

In the area.

Speaker 1:

Let me change it to Cajun. And then everybody started putting two to two and two together. This was our first one here. And we had these on some wings last night as well, Malcolm. Um, this is probably my favorite because it was our first one. Um, this was how this whole journey started in Chris's kitchen with the five Oh rub. This is our sweetened zesty. This is our, um, homage to law enforcement right here. This is our five Oh, sweetens, Estee blend. Chris, you want to talk a little bit about that? Yeah, that's I mean, that, that was our first, we were literally at a competition slinging baggies to people, trying to get them to try it and use it. That's really what started us off. This was when we talk about it, this was me and my kitchen with, you know, all these spices laid out, measuring spoons everywhere. It's just a giant mess. And I got a mixing bowl and I was messing around and I finally called him and I tasted it and I said, Hey, I think I got it. I think this is it. And you know, the other thing about this is this and your barbecue rub. If you look at them, ours is a little bit darker, but the flavors almost in the same ballpark, ballpark, you know, I get so much, I think

Speaker 2:

[inaudible],

Speaker 1:

You know, and we're just going to give a shame. It does have a nice deep hue to it though. You know, it's almost as a brick G. I like to take that and then come over the top with this pop pop to it, and that'll give you the red pop and it gives you a little more sweetness out of it. And it makes just a fantastic color. Yeah. The color is fantastic on ribs, pork button. I mean, that's my go to yours and ours mix in the bowl. So it slows, they just fried wings, drums, and flats, and then just toss them or seasoned the tops of them with just toss them in the road. It's fantastic. I never thought of just put Mon straight on the first dry run. So before I show the next one that I can eat every day, that's what I said.

Speaker 1:

I said, do I half and half between 500 and top gun? I nevermind just bring two orders. So this'll be a nice interlude, I guess you will. So what is your opinion in sales, uh, between rubs and sauces? Um, we sell our original sauce almost as much as we sell our robe, but sauce is a tough game though, because I mean, we could sell it on a retail site and the stores like you guys, but like in the retail setting, it's hard to compete with those, you know, the dollar $2 sauces. I mean, people just don't want to pay a premium price, but you know, I mean it tells a sauce is okay, but you'll never make money in sauce unless you don't want to get the cost down. Well, I mean, you know, being from st. Louis Cross the river st. Louis, you know, we wanted to come out with a traditional st.

Speaker 1:

Louis style st. Louis style suite, you know, with a little bit, our take on it, a little kick on the back. We've got three different pendulum flavor swings, you know, in ours, this is our Patriot sauce here. A perfect score. Memphis in may tell him about that. So tell him about that real quick. Yeah. Oh really? So we, uh, Jimmy, Jimmy makes a, uh, done a Memphis barbecue supply makes a vinegar sauce. And he had, I think it was like four years ago. He won vinegar and tomato and Memphis in may. And, uh, so he said, Hey, if you want to come down and cook with us, he, every year he gives me a category. I come up with some recipe. I drive down there while he said last year or two years ago, he said, Hey, why don't you, why don't you enter your sauce?

Speaker 1:

I said, Oh, that's fine. I'll bring some down and we'll eat it up and get it entered. And, um, we went to a wart and I was standing in the back with our team and I just stand there talking and they called tomato and I was like, Oh yeah, well, whatever. We'll just, we'll wait until they get to the next category. And like, they called Memphis barbecue supply. And I looked at Jimmy and I go, there is no way. He just said that. And so that was, that was the first year. And then, uh, last year we went down there and they had made a mustard or I won, I won first and tomato and Jimmy was like third and vinegar. And then last year we went down there and, uh, we didn't place in tomato. I entered a mustard just on a whim. I made one in my kitchen and I had a couple of people try it.

Speaker 1:

And they're like, yeah, that's pretty good. And for the record, I didn't write down the recipe or anything. That's a whole other hand. And went down, went down to Memphis second and mustache man, and I don't have the recipe, excuse me. So where are you going to be a, we're going to be back recreating the, uh, I have some ideas of where I found tips and tricks and, uh, but I had bought a new phone. So the webpages on my phone were all erased. And I remember you called me that night and I was already few sheets, but I think we're shit faced for like four weeks after that. I wasn't alone. That was a good time. Well, Malcolm, let's get into your stuff real quick. Let's talk about your, uh, your two sauces real quick. Sure. Well, the first one I came up with was the barbecue sauce and I made it to be a competition, barbecue sauce.

Speaker 1:

I was buying blues hall and I was doing the whole combo that everybody does, you know, 50, 50 Tennessee, red and blue sauger gray. You just gave that tip away. I mean, and so I said, I wanted to make a sauce that didn't have, if you ever noticed blues hall is packed full of like herbs and spices and stuff. And I hated all that. I mean, the way it cooks and looks on on meat is awesome, but I didn't like all the grittiness of it. So I set out to make a blues hog, esque type sauce and use my seasoning in it. So it would accompany cause I come out with this product first and then I did the sauce and it was meant to glaze over and make the red pop, but I never gave the sauce company. The actual recipe, I would send them think it was, it took 30, 34 pounds, I think to make one batch of sauce, I would send them 34 pounds of my seasoning and then gave them the directions to make the wet part.

Speaker 1:

So they would have to mix it. And that's how it started. I mean, I guess the vinegar sauce came about kind of like your Memphis or my story. I was doing, um, the vinegar category and one year I made it, I did it didn't write anything down. I just threw stuff together. And I got like second and I was like, Oh man, I gotta make a vinegar sauce. And it took me forever to come back and to get to that vinegar sauce. And I actually got a first place vinegar with that when I met with somebody too. And it was, I just loved vinegar sauce. And if you ask me what's to eat the most of it's the vinegar, I just, I'm not crazy sweet. I don't, you know, I guess I've had so much competition barbecue that it's just not my thing. And there's nothing wrong with it. But me, I like the taste, the spice, I like to taste smoke. I don't want to cover up the meat too much.

Speaker 5:

How about your stuff? What I like about your, uh, your sauces is the consistency of it. So anytime I'm cooking for whether it's a private catering or in my backyard for family and neighbors, whatever, I'm always taking half your vinegar and adding it to our Patriot sauce because you got just the right amount of integrates, not overpowering. That's when I really love it.

Speaker 1:

I bet it's got a little bit of heat, but it don't burn you down either. You know, that's essentially what I did in Mississippi early. I take Tennessee red. Yeah. And realized I didn't bring it with me. I went over some of your buddies, trauma hogs

Speaker 5:

Or competing over by me. And I went over to see if they, they said, well, I've got some vinegar here. And I was like, I'm going to take that. And I mixed it with Patriot spicy.

Speaker 1:

And that's what I put in my rap and the color that came out. Oh man, it was fantastic. So I'll use the vinegar straight out of the bottle. And then now our comp saws, I get tired of just mixing up a thousand things. I go 50 50, my three sauces. I run it and it puts a barbecue to me. I think a lot of times people try to get way outside of the box too much. It's really just about getting something that puts the right color on it. That has a good consistency. And then just, you know, doesn't offend the barbecue.

Speaker 5:

Well, I think, and we'll stay on topic here, but I think that's one of the things I most commonly hear is don't overthink it. Yup.

Speaker 1:

You know, I mean, Chris, when he first got an SCA, I mean, that's what you were sharing with me is don't overthink it. I keep it simple. So many people want to do well,

Speaker 3:

All this crazy stuff. And I've seen, I mean, I've seen guys mashup pine up,

Speaker 1:

Try and soak their steak. [inaudible] try to get it tender. I mean, the idea behind a good steak is it's got to taste like steak. That's right. That's right. If it doesn't taste like steak, he kind of,

Speaker 3:

I miss the point and I just want to point out code three spices smoking on main right here in Collinsville, you guys did a CA event and then included pork steak, which is, you know, that regional favorite cut. But the winner of the ribeye, he had never even competed in an SCA.

Speaker 1:

Well, believe it or not, he had come to my house the Friday night. [inaudible] I didn't even think about it when he came up on stage and I was like, Oh, good for you. And he's like, no, you helped me with this. I was like, Oh, I completely forgot it. Yeah. He had, it was first time. First time I was when's an SCA. It was insane. Um, but he, yeah, he went down and cooked. There were four of us from this area. I got to go down and cook the world finals and it, uh, we all set up next to each other. It was a good old time now. So we didn't have enough room on the table for all your products. But right here we have the barbecue rub and the steak rub. Do you want to sort of walk everybody through what your flavor profiles are and what's available?

Speaker 1:

Sure. Um, I mean the original was my competition. Barbecue. I'll call it the barbecue rub because that's the only one you need to win the trophy cause they've offered here and it was, we designed it to, um, we needed something by Memphis of my it's it's different than SCA or KCBS or any of these other categories because the judge comes and sits down like us. And we have to sell our product tool, how we cook, how we cook the ribs, what we used on the whole process. So I wanted to be able to let the judge taste the seasoning that I'm putting on me. And then when they taste the meat, they could see those flavors come through. And so we made a rub that tastes good. Not only does it give it the good color, it's got the balance of the sweet, the salty, a little spice. You gotta have those barbecue elements, you know, a little cumin for smokiness, with the pepper Rica's and the chili powders, all that stuff that goes into a good barbecue rub is in it. But then when you taste it, some people, so they can sit down and eat a whole bowl.

Speaker 1:

That was how that one came about. Sure. And I'm just going to, before you go into the next, the rest of yours, you know, we got people coming in and they'll buy your entire line. There's a lot of guys in our industry that have five, six, seven, 12, 15 products. Not all of them are good, you know? So I can honestly say that every single one of your products it's off the charts.

Speaker 3:

Um, what is your,

Speaker 1:

What, what, what blend of yours is the most favorite of yours and why, and or what are you the most proud of? Probably the barbecue rub. I mean, we sell, gosh, I don't know, 20 something thousand bottles over the week. I mean, it's not easy. Um, and so that's probably my, my favorite, um, AP is something that we use every single day and I made the AP rub next after I made the barbecue rub because I wanted one that was just had the savory tones that everybody knew. And I started giving the recipe out way before I ever had it, bottled it, salt, pepper, and garlic, like two, one, one a half. And I put a little herbs in there and I, while people don't like it, but I put MSG on it because it wakes everything up. And you might not know this, but judges love them as gee.

Speaker 1:

I don't know what they tell you, but they have solutely love it because it kills. I mean, when you've got it in, when you've got it in a seasoning or your sauce or owner's steak, it wins out, wins, it wakes up flavors. You know, that AP makes a great base, no matter what you're doing, you can put an AP down as a base and then come over with your barbecue flavors. It's a great combination. So that one probably sells second. When I come out with a hot, which is kind of a reduced, I took the sugar back, added more heat. And so people, people like that, like smoking guns hot, or, uh, you know, uh, the cosmos had one of the dirty bird, hot, those rubs got really popular about the time I was working on that. And so I said, what about your hot rubber tubes? I like it. You know, so that's how I did that. Then I did the steak and this was originally called steak and chop. And I come about this because I was using Montreal steak, seasoning all my brisket. And KCBS as for texture, like, you know, you said you developed grunt. Well, I wanted to come out with one that didn't quiet. You know, Montreal has kinda got some weird arms like deal and some coriander and things that are just, I guess, more Canadian. I don't know.

Speaker 2:

[inaudible]

Speaker 1:

I made one that I liked it was close. And so it it's really all about texture. Um, it's the same while you can grind this and turn it into a finishing dust. That's fantastic. It brings that peppery note out. And when you put it on, it just melts in with the little spreadable that works really good with your AP as well. I was telling you last night, I did that, that ribeye a couple of weeks ago with your AP, your steak, some of our top gun and I ground down our, our ground rub garlic when, and the flavor is off the charts, you know? So that's the other one too, is, you know, just with these products sitting right here on the table, you've got six, seven different flavor profiles of rubs. And just with those seven flavor profiles of rubs, you could walk in any competition if you know your measurements and put a good cook on every day of the week. I'm good here too. I carry too.

Speaker 2:

Well. One of the things I'm really interested in learning, Chris has shared a little bit, but what's, I'm really interested in the ideation process. How do you, how do you test these things? How do you come up with them? Is it just based upon what you kind of like, and what's worked, or do you, you test these to a larger audience before you bottle them up? Or what's the,

Speaker 1:

We tested ours with judges on how it did in competition with people that knew. So that's how, that's how I would test it, all of my stuff. Um, you know, of course the new stuff I'm working on, I'm kind of getting away from barbecue. I've done like a, I call it granddad, gringo, Mexican seasoning, or jam and jerks. Fantastic. I'm trying to get into some different things. Those that I hadn't tested the judges, I just cook it to my taste. And then I, you know, I've tested it on my family, Michelle, but for sure use it to pass well, move on to some friends and let them try it and see if they get the same results I do. So it's, I mean, it's kind of like just a trial and error, I guess. See how it turns out, you know, there's no, I don't have any like specific method I use. I just try to make something that tastes good. And he used a big word, like ideation where like, [inaudible], that's what I do.

Speaker 2:

Um, where, you know, we could spend hours today with you guys we're coming up on time, but there is kind of a, you know, a question I want to ask both you guys I know, on, on our channel, uh, one of the biggest compliments I can ever receive is when someone takes and shares one of our videos, you know, that to me is, uh, shows that they enjoyed it enough to want to tell others about it. Uh, Malcolm, you first, can you tell us, you know, um, uh, that, that kind of same compliment moment, what's the biggest compliment you can receive when it comes to either your rubs or your videos or just the business in general.

Speaker 1:

And I don't know. I feel like we're blessed all the time, not just one specific thing. I mean, um, last year, um, we were at the world foods and the NBQ a kinda gave me a little award for, I guess it was excellence in barbecue or something, but I felt like it wasn't just for me because I went to my wife more than I do anything, or the people that have helped me get to where I am or all the people that watch my videos. I kind of share it with everybody. So all of it's special.

Speaker 2:

And Chris, what about you? What's kind of been that, those moments where you realize, Hey, I'm really doing something that people enjoy using here.

Speaker 1:

Well, Malcolm can agree to this. One of the, one of the best compliments when he would get that call up on stage, you know, you put good barbecue down today. That's all right. I'll tell you. I mean, really I I'm, I'm a foodie. I just liked good food and I like to be able to make it and share it with people and watch them enjoy it. I think that's one of the biggest compliments you can get is when you can turn out good food, um, you know, and your guests or your friends or judges, or you just know people like it. That's my drive to, I think, I mean, you know, I love there's nothing better than someone trying your stuff and telling you how great it is or taking one of your recipes and impressing their friends or feeding their family with it. I mean, that's, to me, that's why I do what I do. I've always said if one person to watch it, I'll keep making videos. And I feel like it's helped, you know, I hope it's open and you get the stories of people use know they come into your store and they ask, you know, I can't tell you how many times I've talked brisket with some guy who wanted to cook his first one. And he came back and said, man, you were right on that. That was one of the best things I've ever had. And it really gets people's attention. It does.

Speaker 2:

But are you talking about, uh, you know, if one person watches it, you'll keep doing it. I just want to take a moment and acknowledge and congratulate you, as we talked about before the podcast, uh, within probably the next week, you're going to hit a million subscribers coming up. Yeah. And that's a really big milestone.

Speaker 1:

We're excited because it's been on, seems like I remember back when I told Rochelle, there's no way we'd ever hit it. And then she said, well, go with yourself. And I said, well, I don't know. I just don't think that many people's into barbecue. And here we are 10 years later and steady growing. And I would say it's probably one of the biggest, fastest growing cuisines out there right now. I think. Well, it's, it's like when you bought your first 500 pounds and you said, how am I ever going to sell this? I guess I've always FMT glass gun. Be more optimistic. Now I'm going to try to hit 10, I guess. Well, I know we're doing another podcast here in a little bit. Why don't we tell everybody on this podcast where we can find you on YouTube, where we can find you online?

Speaker 1:

Anything else you want to share? You know, you can find me on how to barbecue, right on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, I'll do most Twitter. We don't either, but you know, I'm on all platforms, shell. And I have a podcast too, that we do, we try and do it, which is excellent. By the way, it'd be up to you got questions. I'll try to help everybody. That's that's my thing. I don't think there's any dumb questions if we don't know the answer to it. No, no dumb ones. And Joe, so just so everybody knows, this is our first insertion of tales from the pet, right? So we're going to be doing more of these. They're excited. We're going to be having Chris on here a lot more. Whenever it comes to the cooking segments, we're going to be providing some of the top pit masters in the country. Uh, John Lindsey, the biggest names out there, you know, so I'm really excited about that. So we can share with everybody listening and watching, you know, who, the people we do associate with the people that are in our community. And we're excited to bring all that to you. You got anything you want to add, Joe?

Speaker 2:

No. Other than, uh, you know, letting everyone know we're gonna take another podcast, we're really gonna dive into Malcolm's story. You know, the engine that drives the boat, if you will. So really looking forward to sharing some of that with our audience.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. And big, thanks to a Rockwood charcoal and grow greats. Um, we've got some other sponsors are going to be added here within the weeks to come. We've got some traveling coming up, so stay tuned. Um, if you're on Instagram, make sure you follow Chris bono Meyer, red meat lover, not a barbecue. Right. I microdose which we got code three spices. Um, but we're really going to start ramping up the meat America, Instagram page. So, and we also have a private group right now on Facebook meet America as well. That's right. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

We have some really exciting content of visiting experts on location in their restaurant kitchens, uh, across the country. Can't wait to share that, that, that some of that awesome knowledge where they're going to share full to how to, uh, meaty recipes that the audience can recreate at home. So

Speaker 1:

Well guys, thank you for being on a podcast. Number three, we love you. And we're like, we're looking forward to podcast. Number four.

Speaker 2:

It's been a great time. Yeah. I love hanging out, you know, um, I guess until then, no, keep tuning in for the next episode of meet America,

Speaker 4:

Subscribe to our podcast and YouTube channel at red meat lover.com and learn more at meatamericapodcast.com.