Tillman’s sweeps Butts & Clucks
Tillman and Amy Nelson drove for the third straight year 500 miles up from Margate to attend the Butts and Clucks Cookoff on the Bay BBQ event in Apalachicola.
It turned out to be a charm.
“We had been working at doing this for 13 years and now that I brought my electrical engineer wife on board…” said Tillman, as the couple celebrated a sweep not only of the top prize but also of the prizes awarded for best pork and chicken sauces.
They won for pork, took third in ribs, were fifth in chicken, but were 25th for brisket, lower than usual but not enough to sink their chances.
In all, they would drive back home with a check for $3,362.50, not bad for a long weekend in Franklin County.
Sharing in the excitement of Tillman’s win was Lakeland’s Jim Elser, a veteran pitmaster and champion who wears more than 70 reserve and grand champion belts from around the state and country he’s won over the past six years.
That excellence in the sport, and he refers to it as a “sport,” had led to success as an entrepreneur with his Sweet Smoke Q enterprise in Lakeland, where he manufactures smokers, formulates rubs, bottles sauces, and offers classes in competitive cooking.
“In 2023, Tillman won Best Sauce on the Planet in Kansas City, and he comes to me, this is my guy, and he says to me ‘It needs something’,” said Elser. “I tweaked it; it’s a credit to him.” The sauce is available at www.tillmansbbq.com
Tillman took one of Elser’s classes after he started out in 2012, and the two have been friends ever since. “I look at them (students) as my kids,” Elser said. “I’m ecstatic.”
He said that he sees a lot of people go through his class and he saw something in Tillman as far back as 2013, when he was an unknown but had taken the top prize in a brisket competition.
“I can pick out the ones who are focused,” Elser said. “You have to be focused, and he’s one of them. I take a lot of my students aside and tell them ‘You got it, you just got to go and compete more.’ Practice makes perfect and this guy has taken it to the next level.”
Lest anyone think Elser’s reputation is flawless, he was brought down to earth Saturday during the turn-in for the first of the four meat varieties that are judged.
He likes to be a late finisher, to make sure his meat is as warm and picture perfect as it can be, and so he cut it close to submit his entry to the tent at Battery Park full of 56 judges who would spend the day sampling entries from the 40 teams.
In fact, Elser cut it too close, and for only the second time in 16 years, missed the turn-in and thus would get a zero for chicken, making it all but impossible for him to add to his championships.
Following three days of record cold and ice, John Solomon, founder and director of the Butts & Clucks, was blessed with a crisp and sunny Saturday.
“It was a beautiful welcome to Florida,” he said. “You don’t like the weather? Give it a minute, it will change.
“As always they enjoyed Apalachicola and they enjoyed our county. Everyone said they will be back next year,” he said.
Tillman and Amy drove up Thursday, with their RV towing their rig. “We went around town, we had a great time Thursday night but we couldn’t find anything to eat at 8:30 p.m.,” he said. “We’re getting ready to go to the Station tonight and celebrate over there. All the restaurants here are awesome; we love coming here.”
Solomon threw the Mystery Box competitors a bit of a curveball, when he decided to keep to the seafood theme, but change from the usual shrimp and oysters that cooks have to figure out what to do with. He chose frog legs, and judges T.J. Pendleton, Kim Council and Danny Itzkovitz gave the top prize to Come & Git It BBQ’s firecracker frog legs, fried and served over a sweet potato mash.
A big winner this year was the Elder Care Community Council, which serves up meals for seniors.
They received 56 pans of meat donated by competitors, a case and a half of cole slaw, two cases of hamburger buns, and 12 packs of chicken thighs, a new record for donations from Butts & Clucks.
Plus they will get the $680 from the raffle proceeds, and to top it off, Carol Eggers, with the Bayside BBQ team out of Port St. Joe, donated the top prize – a $200 gift certificate for meat from The Butcher Shoppe in Pensacola – back to the event.
Solomon said he plans to redeem the certificate for stew meat, which the ECCC said they can make the best use of. Valentina Webb, who spoke at the closing ceremonies, thanked everyone for their generosity year after year.
And the winners are
Mystery Box: 1) Come & Git It BBQ 2) Cheese and Crackers BBQ Team 3) Mechanix Smoke House
Sauces: Pork) Tillman’s BBQ Chicken) Tillman’s BBQ
Peoples’ Choice: Hold Your Horses
Best Rig: Smokin Bros BBQ
Deviled Eggs: 1) Mechanix Smoke House 2) Cold Beer BBQ 3) On Scene BBQ
Chicken: 1) Cold Beer BBQ 2) Done Right Smokin 3) Smokin Ash BBQ
Ribs: 1) Smokin Ash BBQ 2) GitChewSum BBQ 3) Tillman’s BBQ
Pork: 1) Tillman’s BBQ 2) Kings BBQ 3) Smokin’ Sweetmeats
Brisket: 1) Keepin It Smokin 2) Cold Beer BBQ 3) Uncle Toad BBQ
Overall: 1) Tillman’s BBQ 2) Kings BBQ 3) Smokin’ Sweetmeats 4) Smokin Ash BBQ 5) Keepin It Smokin
Meet the Editor
David Adlerstein, The Apalachicola Times’ digital editor, started with the news outlet in January 2002 as a reporter.
Prior to then, David Adlerstein began as a newspaperman with a small Boston weekly, after graduating magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He later edited the weekly Bellville Times, and as business reporter for the daily Marion Star, both not far from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
In 1995, he moved to South Florida, and worked as a business reporter and editor of Medical Business newspaper. In Jan. 2002, he began with the Apalachicola Times, first as reporter and later as editor, and in Oct. 2020, also began editing the Port St. Joe Star.