And everywhere the BBQ Posse looked there were other posses

Member of the Bandera County Young Life BBQ group pose for a photo with legendary Snow's pitmaster Tootsie Tomanetz.
(Photo ©Chris WIlkins/Texas BBQ Posse)

My memory isn't what it used to be, but I was pretty sure we ran into a first -- for us anyway -- during the Posse's trip to Snow's BBQ in Lexington last weekend.

We met two groups of fellow barbecue lovers, each wearing special shirts championing their meat-loving pursuits.

One group of a half-dozen guys from North Texas wore very nice black and red bowling shirts with the words "BBQ Burnt Ends" above the word "Caliente."

Another similar-sized, but younger, contingent had simple white sleeveless t-shirts that said: "Bandera County Young Life Texas BBQ Tour."

After eating, both groups had their photos taken with Snow's great pit master Tootsie Tomanetz.

"The greatest BBQ Lady in the world," Ric Clark of Burnt Ends wrote when he posted his group's photo with Tootsie on the Posse's Facebook page.

To double check my memory, I consulted with other long-time Posse members. Co-founder Chris Wilkins reminded me that we did run into a couple of California guys at La Barbecue early this year who wore special shirts commemorating their Texas tour.  And while we all remembered meeting many other dedicated barbecue lovers since our barbecue travels began in 2009, no one could remember meeting such similar organized groups.

"It's my impression there are way more organized groups now," Wilkins said later as we discussed the phenomenon by email. "I rarely remember running into groups in the early days. Also, there were no paid tours then either."

He referred to the sponsored tours and other barbecue experiences organized by Drew Thornley at Man Up Texas BBQ, Daniel Vaughn at Texas Monthly's TMBBQ, and others.

The Bandera County Young Life BBQ group digs into a Snow's BBQ feast.
(Photo ©Chris WIlkins/Texas BBQ Posse)

"It's also interesting how many of them have been following us (on the blog) and use that in their planning, much like we did with Daniel's original blog in 2009," Wilkins said.

Before TMBBQ, Vaughn wrote the Full Custom Gospel BBQ blog and still has a Facebook page with that name. In the early days, Full Custom was indeed our barbecue gospel.

So, what's going on here? Is the organized barbecue "posse" concept becoming a thing?

Well, yes, it appears. And the better answer, actually, is "has become" not "becoming."

Jacob Raitz, director of the Bandera County Young Life organization, says this is the fourth year he has led his high school-aged group on a barbecue tour. He continued the idea from his predecessor who started the tours two years previously.

"Barbecue and fellowship just go together," Raitz said in a telephone interview. "They really do. Anything where you sit down and eat a meal together. We're talking about barbecue. We're talking about life."

The Posse couldn't agree more.

Raitz said his group ate barbecue Friday, Saturday and Sunday, visiting Black's, Louie Mueller, and M-Train BBQ as well as Snow's. M-Train is a new joint in Austin, started by a former employee of John Mueller at the trailer site of the former John Mueller Meat Co.

"We do a burger tour in the spring, which is great, but it's nothing like barbecue," Raitz said. "Tootsie gave us all hugs."

To those hugs, and to all the other barbecue posses out there, The Texas BBQ Posse adds its salute.

The BBQ Burnt Ends tour group from the D/FW area pose with Tootsie Tomanetz. (Photo Ric Clark/Facebook)

Confessions of another BBQ Snob*

Bruce Tomaso, right, joins fellow members of the Texas BBQ Posse on our 2013 Best of Texas Tour.
(Photo by Tom Fox/DMN)

By Bruce Tomaso

A few weeks ago, while on a BBQ tour with the Posse, I had an epiphany.

It wasn’t a magnificent epiphany. I’m not Archimedes. But it was enough to permanently change the way I approach this quest of ours for “the greatest smoked meats in the greatest state in the Union.”

I realized that I’ve become a BBQ snob.

I’m not particularly proud of this, but I don’t apologize, either. I’ve simply reached a stage where I have no interest in eating mediocre barbecue. (And sweet baby Jesus, there’s a lot of mediocre barbecue out there.)

How Daniel Vaughn, the BBQ Snob, turned himself into the hottest brand in smoked meat

Daniel Vaughn bites into a rib at the Baby Back Shak in 2009. (Photo by David Woo/The Dallas Morning News)

(Note: Rebecca LaFlure is a Texas native, long-time barbecue fan and journalism graduate student at Northwestern University. Prior to attending Northwestern, she worked as a reporter for media outlets in Killeen and Austin. She currently covers national security as a fellow at the Center for Public Integrity in Washington D.C. The following article was initially written as a research paper for a 21st Century Media course at Northwestern.)

By Rebecca LaFlure

On March 21, Texas Monthly announced it hired someone for “what may be the most coveted job” in the Lone Star State: the magazine’s first barbecue editor. News of the unusual title spread fast. New York Times writer Manny Fernandez called the new hire “a walking milestone in the history of Texas barbecue.”

I mentioned the newly created position to my friend Matt Goodman, a digital producer for an ABC affiliate in Dallas, Texas. “Let me guess,” he said. “They hired Daniel Vaughn.”

Goodman guessed right. Vaughn managed to turn his love for barbecue into a career. He left his job as a Dallas architect to become the country’s only barbecue editor. Vaughn joined Texas Monthly’s barbecue franchise, which, according to its website, includes a Joint Finder smart phone application, annual barbecue festival and a Top 50 list published every five years. Vaughn regularly produces a mix of barbecue reviews, news articles, interviews and weekly columns for the magazine’s barbecue website, TMBBQ.com.

Vaughn didn’t get the job by chance. He developed a brand as a barbecue expert through a blog he started in 2008 called Full Custom Gospel Barbecue, where Vaughn posted reviews of the hundreds of barbecue joints he visited. “At the time, nobody had done that before,” said R.J. Hinkle, a Dallas-area photographer for QuadGraphics who’s attended barbecue tours with a group called the Texas BBQ Posse. “Not only did he create a brand, but he created a genre and a market.”

Stay tuned for a story about Daniel Vaughn, the BBQ Snob, and how he became the No.1 brand in barbecue. . .you will like it

Daniel Vaughn photographs his breakfast at Snow's BBQ in Lexington. (Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse)

We've got a treat for you. And since you are all -- y'all -- Texas barbecue fans, you are used to waiting in lines for the good stuff, right?

So, wait just a little longer.

Rebecca LaFlure, a Texas native, long-time barbecue fan and graduate student at Northwestern University, did a research paper recently for her  21st Century Media course on branding and how Daniel Vaughn, Texas Monthly barbecue editor, became the dominant brand in all of barbecue.

You might call it, the making of a BBQ Snob.

Prior to Northwestern, LaFlure worked as a reporter for media outlets in Killeen and Austin. She currently covers national security as a fellow at the Center for Public Integrity in Washington D.C.

I think you will like LaFlure's account, footnotes and all. It will be posted presently.

Mac's Bar-B-Que of Dallas makes a surprise visit on Men's Journal Top 10 Texas BBQ list

Brisket Frito Pie at Mac's Bar-B-Que in Dallas. (Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse)

Another day, another Top 10 Texas BBQ list.

It's gotten to the point where every publication, whether they've ever actually ever stepped foot in the state, is coming out with their own top 10 Texas BBQ list.

Outside of Texas Monthly and the Posse's recent Best of Texas BBQ rankings, I pretty much ignore all the often silly lists coming out these days.

However, I couldn't resist the temptation to open a link this weekend from Men's Journal, trumpeting "EXPERT ADVICE: Daniel Vaughn's Top 10 BBQ Joints in Texas."

When Daniel speaks, barbecue fans listen. Thus is the power of the pulpit when you are Texas Monthy's BBQ ambassador.

Lots of gorilla dust in the Texas barbecue world…Why?

Customers wait in line at Louie Mueller Barbecue in Taylor. (Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse)

I don't know if Ross Perot likes barbecue. He's Texan, so probably. But it doesn't really matter.

He had the perfect term for what's happening now in some parts of the Texas barbecue world.

Gorilla dust.

Whenever Ross saw sideshows obscure real issues, whenever he saw posturing and anemic attempts at intimidation, he called it "gorilla dust."

For him, cutting through b.s. was the only way to do business. That approach helped make him a business legend.

During the past week or so, as I've thought about the reaction to Mike Leggett's recent column in the Austin American-Statesman, I keep thinking of Ross' term, gorilla dust.

Leggett, if you recall, is the outdoors columnist who wrote about his unpleasant experience at Louie Mueller Barbecue in Taylor when he was in line at the same time a tour group from Texas Monthly arrived.

In Leggett's opinion, the tour group caused him to have to wait an inordinate amount of time to be served. That's the main issue, sideshows aside.

"Call me an old goat," Leggett wrote at the top of his column. "Call me a grouch and an ungrateful snake. Call me just plain shortsighted because I haven’t recognized the smoked meat worship that’s swept over our state."

'Bikes, Blues, and Barbecues,' about a father and son bicycle tour through Texas, now available as an e-book

Robby Landauer rides between Lockhart and Bastrop, on the way to Giddings. This was the longest day of their tour.

You may remember the father and son -- Tim and Robby Landauer -- who made the bicycle barbecue tour through the Central Texas heartland.

We published an item about them in March after Robby sent us a copy of an unpublished manuscript he had written about the trip titled "Bikes, Blues, and Barbecues: Me, my dad and our three favorite things."

Now, Robby Landauer has turned his manuscript into an e-book, available both through Amazon and Google Play.

"You don't need a Kindle to read the Amazon copy," proud father Tim informed us in an email. "Amazon has free apps for reading it on any computer, smartphone, or tablet.  With Google Play, I think it's just a PDF, so even easier."

Texas Monthly Top 50 BBQ first timers - Joseph's Riverport Barbecue in Jefferson

The opening spread to Texas Monthly's Top 50 BBQ list. (Photos by Wyatt McSpadden/Texas Monthly)

During the past four years, we've eaten a lot of great barbecue and met an equal number of notable folks running BBQ joints around the state. A meal is almost always followed by a pit tour while swapping tales about the Texas BBQ trail.

They always have a story to tell.

At some point the conversation almost always turns to Texas Monthly magazine and the holy grail of endorsements, their Top 50 BBQ list.

Faces would light up at the possibility of landing on the list. An instant evaluation that all those early mornings and hard work were finally worth it. All of the sudden they might join the joints with long lines that are open "til the meat runs out."

Dallas BBQ history made at Daniel Vaughn's book party with the first briskets ever cooked in Big D by Aaron Franklin

Aaron Franklin, center, works the serving line while Justin Fourton works his smoker "Lurlene." (Jim Rossman photo)

Friday was an historic night in Dallas barbecue.

The book party for Daniel Vaughn's Prophets of Smoked Meat at the home of Steve and Anne Stodghill brought together four of Texas' best pitmasters: Aaron Franklin of Franklin Barbecue in Austin, Justin Fourton of Pecan Lodge in Dallas, Tim Byres of Smoke in Dallas and Will Fleischman of Lockhart Smokehouse in Dallas.

A review: In Barbecue Crossroads, Robb Walsh shows how to write a road trip book

Author Robb Walsh doesn't think much of the best-of barbecue lists compiled by bloggers and journalists.

But we won't hold that against him.  The former food writer at the Houston Press, whose Barbecue  Crossroads was just issued by the University of Texas Press, admits he was once there himself. 

Besides, Crossroads is a fine book. As a barbecue road trip account, it's everything that Daniel Vaughn's The Prophets of Smoked Meat isn't.

"Take off your jacket, honey, make yourself comfortable," Thelma Williams of Thelma's in Houston tells a New York companion of Walsh's during their visit to her place.

Thelma could just as well be welcoming readers as Walsh takes them on a tour of joints in Texas and throughout the south.

True confessions of a BBQ vegan

Wearing my favorite BBQ t-shirt from Stanley's while dining at our favorite vegan joint, The Loving Hut in Addison.

I've been a blogger for the past ten years, writing mainly about photojournalism and barbecue. I even helped start the now-defunct Dallas Morning News fantasy football blog in the early 2000's.

Because I have a confession to make, this may be the toughest post I've ever had to write.

For six long weeks in February and March of this year, I walked in the shoes of the enemy. The co-founder of the Texas BBQ Posse became a vegan.

I'm the same guy who claimed victory over the meat-free world in 2010 when the Texas BBQ Posse cook team converted two vegetarians with Bryan Gooding's first-place chicken at the first Blues, Bandits and Blues cookoff in Oak Cliff.

My life as a vegan started innocently enough when I went to a Christmas party at the home of our friends Ray and Susan Shepard. Ray is a serious barbecue expert and member of the championship Boys Can Smoke cook team out of Tulsa.

A review: Daniel Vaughn's book on Texas BBQ seems more about bad barbecue than good

The Posse has been a strong supporter of Daniel Vaughn, self pro-claimed BBQ Snob, champion blogger and new BBQ editor of Texas Monthly magazine.

Once, long before he got his new gig, we even discussed how an alliance of aggressive bloggers -- him and us -- might actually be able to displace the magazine he now works for as the bible of Texas barbecue.

So, this review is painful in the blogger brotherhood.

I expected his new book, The Prophets of Smoked Meat, to be a celebration of great Texas barbecue because there is plenty to cheer, including an ongoing BBQ renaissance in both Austin and Dallas.

Will Texas Monthly's Top 5 BBQ joints be same as those named by its new BBQ editor?

During our live online barbecue chat Monday on DallasNews.com, a reader asked us to predict the Top 5 ranked joints in Texas Monthly's 2013 BBQ issue, which should be available soon.

There was considerable agreement among the four Posse members participating. We each put Franklin Barbecue in Austin No. 1. The next three spots were occupied by the same three joints, although the orders differed: Snow's BBQ in Lexington, La Barbecue in Austin and Pecan Lodge in Dallas.

The fifth spot, depending upon the Posse member, went to either Louie Mueller Barbecue in Taylor or Kreuz Market in Lockhart.

A few hours after the chat ended, I was finally able to get a copy of Daniel's Vaughn's new book, The Prophets of Smoked Meat, which is due out in a couple of weeks.

Vaughn of course is the celebrated blogger -- Full Custom Gospel BBQ -- who recently became BBQ editor of Texas Monthly.

In his book, Vaughn lists his Top 5, not in any designated order: Fargo's Pit BBQ in Bryan, Louie Mueller, Pecan Lodge, Vera's Backyard Bar-B-Que in Brownsville and Franklin.

"In a region where barbacoa is worshipped, a trip to Vera's can double as Sunday mass," Vaughn writes. "Vera's is the only joint in the state still cooking beef heads with wood smoke..."

It will be interesting to see how Vaughn's Top 5 mimic -- or don't -- Texas Monthly's.

A readers' guide to The Barbecue Chronicles, the journeys of the Texas BBQ Posse

Since November 2009, members of the Texas BBQ Posse have traveled nearly 5,000 miles searching for the best barbecue in the state. True sojourners of smoked meat, BBQ Snob and prolific blogger Daniel Vaughn once called us. Back at you, Daniel.

As we await publication in The Dallas Morning News of our recent Best of Texas Tour, here's an annotated readers' guide, with links, to the first 11 chapters of our barbecue chronicles.