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Developing partnerships is vital for a growing team and our strongest supporters from the very start have been Peter and Jim Hannan from Hannan meats in Moira. Having access to and support from Ireland's premium meat “Artisan” has been vital to our proud “local” mindset. We have no desire to use, compete with or promote US or Australian meats when we live in a country that produces some of the world's finest produce especially when “meat wizard” Peter Hannan and his team at the Meat Merchant are behind them, a prime example of this being his Sugar pit bacon rack which took 1st place at Q'fest!!
Another great Smokin Yankees supporter has been Mike Trump of Oakridge BBQ in Kearney Missouri! Being a genuinely great guy Mike first helped us during our dream trip to Tennessee and Kansas city last year when the Oakridge family opened their arms for us, he continues to help us through his sponsorship programme and because of this we have fantastic access to all Oakridge products which we proudly use in all competitions etc
This year has also seen us benefiting from getting to know Jeff from Flameboss in Florida, he very kindly welcomed us into the Flameboss family and provided us with the brand new 300 Wi-Fi pit controllers. Using these had allowed us to up our game by being able to have consistent and predictable temperatures throughout long cooks and monitor 3 meats.I'm not much of a nerd but being able to control your cooker from anywhere in the world is pretty cool, oh and being able to get some sleep at competitions or during those overnight cooks is just plain “frickin awesome”
I've always had a thing for coolers, well coolers and torches! I think it's the prepper in me lol. Having used igloos, colemans etc we’ve always wanted a proper rotomolded cooler from the “yeti” “Rtic” or “Pelican” ilk for competitions but finances have always gotten in the way, recently however we've got to know and work with Oliver Giles from ProSmoke BBQ and the range of inventive BBQ products from the states, one of these being his range of premium rotomolded coolers which are just absolute beasts and probably the only coolers you will ever need! We look forward to working with ProSmoke in the Future.
One of the most satisfying things of the last year has been seeing our 1st commercial sauce hitting the shelves. Developing our Apple and whiskey BBQ sauce from kitchen to stores with the assistance of “food guru” Paul Clark of EnPlace Foods foods was a great opportunity and it does still seem surreal to see our logo on shop shelves around the country!! Whilst developing and promoting our sauce we have had help from the “BBQ family” in Ireland, Britain and beyond including our 1st real review from BBQ giant Marcus Bawdon!! (tip O the cap!)
Within all of this is the central social aspect of low and slow BBQ, be that within the world of social media, our families and friends or within the competition scene, nothing brings people together like meat, fire and smoke! It is what motivates us as a team to continue, the smell of real smoke, the excitement of lifting that lid for the 1st time in 5 hours, the sense of satisfaction when you cut into a moist brisket all keep us coming back for more! I find that there is always a low point in a competition when we question why we go to all of the expense or difficulties of competition BBQ, usually for me it's when I'm missing my kids and scraping the fat of the 20th chicken skin at 2am! Every Time though, the doubts and negativity disappear with the last turn in and are replaced with an immense sense of pride and satisfaction in our efforts. All of us within Smokin Yankees have been well and truly bitten by that competition bug!!
The future is bright for us,(we hope), whether that future is competing at competitions, promoting BBQ through demos etc with business's such as Hillmount nurseries, running bbq classes, developing our range of sauces or hopefully working towards Ireland's first KCBS competition. We certainly will be busy and the smoke will roll!!
Michael