From SAVEUR Issue #139 It's 11 a.m. and eerily quiet. Here, in the grassy holler behind Main Street in Lynchburg, Tennessee, 76 cooking teams from 16 countries have set up camp to compete in the Super Bowl of smoked meat: the 22nd Annual Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational Barbecue, known to those on the competition barbecue circuit simply as "the Jack." Their RVs and tents are lined up in neat rows, forming a city the size of a few football fields that sits under a fragrant cloud of wood smoke. Last night, people walked around ogling each other's cookers and greeting old friends with backslaps and beers. There was a party at the Canadian team's tent, draped in maple leaf banners; a cook from an Austrian team wearing a cowboy hat passed around a bottle of schnapps. But this morning, everyone has their eyes on the prize: $5,000 in cash. And the judging is about to begin. Keep reading »

Dana Bowen