The best in barbecue: Here are 10 top contenders at Memphis in May this year
The competition field at the 2023 Memphis in May World Championship Cooking Contest is as fierce as ever. 150 teams will be back at Tom Lee Park this year to battle for the title of Grand Champion.
Traditionally, teams from more than two dozen states and several countries join the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest ranks every year for one reason — to be part of the greatest barbecue competition event on the planet. Teams compete in three different categories during the contest: Whole Hog, Shoulder and Rib.
The roster of participants this year includes the top names in competition barbecue. They are all here in Memphis to win the most coveted title in competition barbecue.
These are the expert pitmasters considered “barbecue royalty” — each with multiple wins to his or her name.
Several have been featured on national TV shows. Many have their own line of sauces and dry rubs. Four in this group have been inducted into the American Royal Barbecue Hall of Fame, which is one of the highest honors for a pitmaster.
Tim Scheer, pitmaster for the Blues Hog team, is the defending Grand Champion.
Memphis in May: Meet the winners of the 2022 World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest
A Bluff City BBQ tour: 5 Memphis barbecue sandwiches in just 4 hours. Here's what we ate.
"Last year we did something that had never been done before. We raised our own animals, built our own cookers, used our own charcoal and sauce recipes, and brought a whole new style of cooking to Memphis in May," he said. "People were saying it couldn’t be done the way we were doing it, and we shocked them. This year, we’ll be back to prove once again that our hot and fast style of cooking is for real."
Here are 10 of this year's top contenders. If you're heading out to the contest, swing by their booths to get a glimpse inside the world of competition barbecue at its highest level.
2022 Grand Champion and Whole Hog Champion: Tim Scheer of Blues Hog
Booth H-311
Born and raised on a hog farm in New Haven, Missouri, Tim Scheer and his wife, Terri, now raise their three daughters just up the road from the fourth-generation family farm. Scheer began cooking in barbecue competitions at the age of 26, and it didn't take long before he began cranking out wins under the team name Shake ‘N Bake BBQ. He purchased the Blues Hog brand from legendary pitmaster Bill Arnold in 2015 and has been head pitmaster since. Over the years, Scheer has collected 35-plus Grand Champion titles and more than 40 Reserve Grand Championship titles including winning the 2021 Shoulder division at Memphis in May and Whole Hog and Grand Champion at the event in 2022. This year, Blues Hog will defend its Grand Champion title in the Whole Hog division.
2022 Shoulder Champion: Mark Lambert of Sweet Swine O’Mine
Booth S-231
Mark Lambert is a champion pitmaster from right outside Memphis. His Sweet Swine O’Mine team has been competing since 1996. What began as a group of telephone company employees has become a legendary barbecue cooking team. Lambert owns and operates Sweet Swine O' Mine Smoker and Grill Superstore in Byhalia, Mississippi. He travels all over the world teaching and promoting his line of barbecue sauces and seasonings. Between the wins at Memphis in May, Houston Rodeo World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest and The American Royal World Series of Barbecue, Lambert has won seven World Barbecue Championship titles. He has been named WCBCC Grand Champion twice — in 2009 and 2013. Lambert will be defending his title in the Shoulder division this year.
2022 Ribs Champion: Heath Riles of Heath Riles BBQ
Booth R-013
Heath Riles has more than 70 championships and multiple perfect score category awards in Memphis Barbecue Network and Kansas City BBQ Society competitions. The Mississippi native has an award-winning line of barbecue rubs, sauces and injections that can be found all over the U.S. and in 11 countries. Riles also releases cooking videos weekly on his website, HeathRilesBBQ.com. His vinegar sauce placed eighth in the 2021 competition. He is once again competing in the Ribs division to defend his 2022 title.
Melissa Cookston of Yazoo’s Delta Q
Booth H-302
Melissa Cookston is known as the “Winningest Woman” in competition barbecue. Born and raised in the Mississippi Delta, Cookston is a seven-time world barbecue champion, having been named Memphis in May Grand Champion twice. She is also the owner of Memphis Barbecue Company restaurant in Horn Lake, the author of two cookbooks and frequent host on barbecue cooking shows. Cookston also owns The BBQ All Stars Superstore in Southaven. She was inducted into the Barbecue Hall of Fame in 2017. Cookston competes in the Whole Hog division. She placed third in Whole Hog in 2021 and sixth in 2022.
Brad Orrison of The Shed BBQ
Booth H-329
Brad Orrison is the team captain for The Shed BBQ and owner of the Ocean Springs, Mississippi, restaurant of the same name. Orrison has won the title of Grand Champion twice, won the Whole Hog division three times and has multiple ancillary competition (poultry, beef and booth) wins. This will be his 17th year to compete in the Whole Hog division. The Shed placed second in the poultry competition in 2022.
Leslie Roark Scott of Ubons BBQ of Yazoo
Booth H-323
Leslie Roark Scott has been on the competition barbecue circuit since 1990, when she joined the team run by her father, Garry. In 1992, she became the first female to win a grand championship in the Memphis circuit. With multiple wins, she now runs the family’s Yazoo City, Mississippi, restaurant, Ubons Restaurant. Ubons is competing in the Whole Hog division. In 2021, Ubons placed 10th in Whole Hog.
Memphis barbecue: A Nashville columnist gets a Memphis lesson on what true barbecue is. Here's how we schooled him
Memphis BBQ restaurants: We tried The Bar-B-Q Shop's glazed ribs for the first time. (We've been missing out!)
Carey Bringle of Peg Leg Porker
Booth H-306
Nashvillian Carey Bringle is head of the barbecue team Peg Leg Porker and the owner of an award-winning Nashville barbecue joint, also named Peg Leg Porker. Bringle has been cooking at Memphis in May for decades. Before moving to Nashville, he was a cook with the Hog Wild-Real Memphis Barbecue team, placing second twice and making several Top 10 showings with that team. Peg Leg Porker has placed third and seventh in the Whole Hog division. Bringle is competing in Whole Hog this year.
Tuffy Stone of Cool Smoke
Booth S-237
A native Virginian, Tuffy Stone is a six-time World Barbecue Champion pitmaster. He was named WCBCC Grand Champion in 2019. Stone is also a Barbecue Hall of Fame inductee, a cookbook author, a former Marine, a French-trained chef and an occasional reality television star. He owns a restaurant and catering company in Richmond, Virginia. Stone competes in the Shoulder division and placed fifth in the category in 2021 and second in 2022.
Chris Lilly of Big Bob Gibson
Booth S-237
Chris Lilly has five Memphis in May Grand Champion titles and has won the Shoulder division 11 times. Since 1992, Lilly has been the lead pitmaster of Big Bob Gibson’s team and part of the restaurant of the same name. In 2016, Lilly was inducted into the Barbecue Hall of Fame. He also has authored multiple cookbooks. Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Que restaurant has been a dining institution in Decatur, Alabama, since 1925. Lilly placed fifth in the category in 2022.
Charlie McKenna of Lillie’s Q
Booth S-238
Charlie McKenna has competed on the competition barbecue circuit since 2005. McKenna has won multiple Top 10 awards and placed first in Shoulder in 2007 and 2016. Raised in South Carolina, McKenna cooks Southern-style barbecue at his Chicago Lillie's Q barbecue restaurants. His sauces are available in stores nationwide. McKenna is competing in the Shoulder division this year.
Jennifer Chandler is the Food & Dining reporter at The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at jennifer.chandler@commercialappeal.com and you can follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @cookwjennifer.
Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest
When: May 17-20
Hours: 5-10 p.m. May 17, 11 a.m.-midnight May 18-19, 10 a.m.-10 p.m. May 20
Where: Tom Lee Park
Online: memphisinmay.org
Tickets: Single-day general admission tickets are $15 and four-day passes are $54. Tickets can be purchased in advance at memphisinmay.org.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis in May barbecue contest: Who are the top pitmasters competing?
