Jack Daniels Luck

Last year my team was lucky. We were drawn for the Jack Daniels contests, I think a 2/5 chance.

This year, somehow, we were even luckier. Like luckier than getting drawn for the Jack out of Missouri or TX.

After the Harpoon event we found ourselves with a great new cooker but not a Grand Championship in the 2009 season. We felt that we had been cooking pretty good. Maybe we were just missing a little luck? Anyways, we had pretty much resigned ourselves to missing The Jack this season. And then, at the last moment, Jamie and I decided to head up to Maine and cook the Jack automatic state championship contest. Some would say that I was going all along but just hadn't admitted it to myself yet.

We showed up late and found most all of the teams up in Maine had gorged on lobster, la fin du monde and whiskey the night before. Come 11pm seemed most everyone was "napping". It was a cool, beautiful Maine night and we cooked some good barbecue.

At the Awards the next day I Smell Smoke took 1st Ribs, 1st Brisket, 2nd Chicken. That wins pretty much any contest you can think of. I-Que had a 1st Chicken, no call Ribs, 3rd Pork, no call Brisket. A shot at Reserve. Turns out, the only chance we had at Grand Champion was for I Smell Smoke to really BOMB Pork. I'm sure most people reading this blog know how well I Smell Smoke does in Pork every weekend of the summer. So what are the odds of us winning Grand there? 100-1 at least I would say. Really lucky.

Good luck to all the teams in the draw tomorrow, I hope you get lucky and your bung is pulled.