Whole Hog at Scott’s BBQ with Rodney Scott

Whole Hog  at Scott’s BBQ is a thing to behold.  Perfection on a plate.  Now, with the planned addition of a Charleston, SC location of Rodney Scott’s Scott’s BBQ it’s time to get ready for whole hog that’s a lot easier to get to!

The secret to whole hog at Scott’s is roasting the whole animal.  As simple as it sounds Rodney says most people don’t want to deal with it.

Take a look at the new video interview with Rodney Scott HERE and give a listen to a separate PODCAST interview with Rodney Scott below (also transcribed below).

It doesn’t get anymore country than the innards of South Carolina. If you’re ever in the Myrtle Beach area (actually this isn’t even very close to Myrtle Beach). Hemingway, South Carolina, the home

of real country. It doesn’t get more country than Hemingway, South Carolina, and today our guest is from the world-famous Scott’s BBQ. At least whole hog at Scott’s is famous in my book. Sometimes on this podcast we’re going actually be talking to country singers, but also we can delve into real country food.

Again, nothing’s more country

than whole hog at Scott’s with Rodney Scott of Hemingway.  Without any further ado, let’s check in with Rodney, Mr. Scott. Thanks for being here.

Rodney Scott:
My pleasure.

Bill West:
Rodney is world renowned in the world of whole hog BBQ pit cooking, and his store in Hemingway, South Carolina, which I love is, I would say—how long did it take you to drive here? An hour and 15 minutes?

Rodney Scott:
About an hour and 40 minutes.

Bill West:
Depends how fast you drive. Definitely worth a Saturday morning road trip, not only because of the pork, but you also do a mean, what was it a ribeye?

Rodney Scott:
Yeah. We do rib eyes on Saturday, a little something I came up with.

Bill West:
Something special. Have you ever done a book?

Rodney Scott:
Never done a book.

Bill West:
So, you just have been on all these BBQ shows. What’s all the national TV exposure you got?

Rodney Scott:
We’ve been featured on CBS Sunday Morning. We’ve done Anthony Bourdain, Andrew Zimmern’s show. We’ve done Kimberly Simply Southern. We’ve done Man Fire Food. Those are the ones that I know about. There have been several little spots that we’ve appeared on like BBQ Paradise or a little something like that.

Bill West:
They roll in and do it and—

Rodney Scott:
Yeah. They just give you a quick glance of Scott’s BBQ and other BBQ pit masters.

Bill West:
What are your hours over there at the store?

Rodney Scott:
Our hours in Scott’s BBQ, we’re open Wednesday from 9:30 until 6:00. Then, we’re open Thursday, Friday, Saturday from 9:30 until about 8:00.

Bill West:
That’s the dream. Actually, sometimes, that’s Thursday, Friday, Saturday hours. I’m like, that’s a great life. But there’s more to it than just those hours, because y’all are cooking and prepping. What’s that part of it look like?

Rodney Scott:
Oh, my God. Prepping is pretty tough. You have to start cutting wood to carry you throughout the week. You have to clean the pits every week. Just getting all of the hog count together and everything, preparing. It’s pretty physical, both preparing as well as cooking, because everything’s done manually the way that we do it. It starts as early as Tuesday morning, getting ready for Wednesday.

Bill West:
Does the wood come to you chopped?

Rodney Scott:
No. I wish.

Bill West:
You don’t do that anymore, right? Or do you—

Rodney Scott:
Well, I rarely get a chance to go and cut wood, but the guys that still work with us, they cut most of the wood now, and they cut it, bring it in, chop it, and keep the yard stocked up.

Bill West:
Well, I made a visit a couple weeks back and did some video. Just the burn barrel you have, it looks like it’s melting under the heat. That gets pretty intense, right?

Rodney Scott:
That heat is very intense. We get a lot of visitors in the wintertime, especially when it’s freezing.

Bill West:
That’s where people hang out?

Rodney Scott:
Yeah. That’s the hangout spot. Free heat. You just stand around and it’s comfortable.

Bill West:
This podcast started a couple weeks back. It’s about country music, country cooking, country food, which I don’t know that you can get more country than Hemingway, South Carolina, right?

Rodney Scott:
Oh, man. It’s pretty rural out there.

Bill West:
How would you define country cooking? Or country kitchen?

Rodney Scott:
Country cooking in my opinion is basically what you had around the farm or what you had available in your area. For example, you would take a whole hog that you’ve been raising for a while and you would BBQ later on, maybe around harvest season. Garden foods that you grew. That’s my opinion of country cooking. Basically, everything that’s around the house that was in the immediate area that you had to work with.

Bill West:
It almost sounds like farm to table kind of thing, right?

Rodney Scott:
Pretty much.

Bill West:
Which I guess with South Carolina has been pioneers with that, with Sean Brock is a friend and fan of yours, right?

Rodney Scott:
Yeah. Great friend, great guy.

Bill West:
When it comes to sourcing hogs and the things that you do, how hard is that to try and get local? What’s going on in that world? Because everybody’s talking organic and probably I would guess the BBQ world is probably later in the game, maybe, on paying attention to that sort of thing.

Rodney Scott:
Well, we try to keep a little focus on it ourselves. There’s one farmer that we dealt with for years, and because we weren’t able to go to the next farmer, so to speak, to move up, that left us to deal with this old-school guy that still fed his hogs by hand, that was still doing thing the way that he used to do way back. It benefits now because he has the most consistent when it comes to the yield of meat per hog, the flavor, the growth. His hogs come to me pretty healthy all the time, and he’s the only guy that I deal with.

Bill West:
How much difference is there? I grew up in Chicago, and to me, when I have a baby back rib or slab of baby back ribs that I remember in Chicago or spare ribs, it almost seems like a different animal to me, because I thought the bones where I was growing up were more spindly, for lack of a better term. They seemed maybe bigger boned down here in the South. Is that just the different breeds in where you get them?

Rodney Scott:
It can be breeds, and it also can be the age of the hog. Sometimes the older the hog is, the longer the bone or the bigger the bone. It’s usually a little tougher. Again, it’s the breeds. It all depends on which ones you get. A lot of times, you get a nice, like the Mangalica crossed with the Berkshire. He tends to grow pretty good. He’s tender, juicy, cooks real well. I cooked one just a few weeks ago and it came out awesome.

Bill West:
Tell me about those hogs, because that’s something I’m learning. I’ve obviously heard of Berkshire hogs.

Rodney Scott:
We’re all still learning. From what I know, that Mangalica is pretty much a bigger hog and more hairy, kind of like a wooly pig. He tends to grow a lot of intermuscular meat, which is more looking like a steak than pork when it’s raw. He cooks totally different than what you would see here grown just in the South. More of a heritage bred hog, more purebred.

Bill West:
And all that’s becoming more talked about these days? And you can get the information these days, because we have the Internet now and we can all look whole hog at Scott’s up. Your dad started the business, right?

Rodney Scott:
My dad started the business, yes.

Bill West:
Was he doing whole hog?

Rodney Scott:
He was doing whole hog. Whole hog was all we knew. We did the whole hogs from start to current date, and that’s the only thing I ever knew. When it came to cooking shoulders and quarters and halves, that was a whole new ballgame for me, because I was so used to cooking whole hogs.

Bill West:
Part of me says doing whole hog would be the most economical. You just get the whole thing there, but I’ve heard not really. You buy Boston butts or hams and you can pack more on a grill. You can ship more. What’s the reality? Is it more efficient to do a whole hog?

Rodney Scott:
In my opinion, flavor-wise, it’s more efficient to do the whole hog. Of course, you can get a little more meat with the butts, but there’s something that I’ve noticed about cooking a whole hog. Somewhere in that backbone area, that flavor comes out of those backbones when it’s all joined together. That’s just a little different than it is with just a butt by itself or with just a half of a hog split down the middle, even. It’s a big difference when you keep the whole hog together.

Bill West:
Really?

Rodney Scott:
Yeah. It’s amazing. It sounds crazy, but I’ve come to notice it in the last few years that, when you’ve got it all together, it tastes a whole lot different.

Bill West:
I was watching you the other day, mixing things up as you go and adding the sauce. I think there’s something to that as well, just paying attention to it. I remember you saying the bones, the bone-in cooking like that and we’ve all heard that before, like steak bone-in, there’s something that it—

Rodney Scott:
Something different.

Bill West:
That it gives it, and I’m sure the spine that’s in there, there’s a surface area all down that backbone. You think even when you have a half a hog, it’s different?

Rodney Scott:
It’s still different. It’s still a little different. The flavor’s still good, but someone who eats hogs as much as I do would kind of notice the difference in the hog cut in half versus him butterflied. Butterflied being just split down the spine, not completely apart.

Bill West:
No doubt, I think the flavor, when you go whole hog, there’s just nothing like it. The easy argument with that would be, of course, because you’ve got ribs in there. You’ve got the pork tenderloin. When you buy a whole hog, you’re paying for the ribs, too. In that regard, if somebody’s just doing a pulled pork BBQ, they would probably save money just by doing butts and shoulders.

Rodney Scott:
Exactly.

Bill West:
Okay. When you get Scott’s BBQ, you’re getting the bacon in there and everything, which just—

Rodney Scott:
You’re getting everything.

Bill West:
Makes it all just taste great. Have you ever done a commercial sauce? I know you sell it out of the store, but mass marketed?

Rodney Scott:
We’ve never done a commercial sauce, no. Never. There is a sauce out there with Scott’s name on it, but that is not us. The only sauce that we sell is right there at the store.

Bill West:
The Scott’s that I see, because I asked you the same thing. I saw a yellow-red out of North Carolina. In fact, the news guy just popped his head and said, oh, I love that sauce. That sauce is great and it’s a good low-carb thing. Your sauce is similar, but describe your sauce.

Rodney Scott:
Our sauce is vinegar and pepper based, of course. Same as that sauce, but we don’t have quite as many ingredients as Scott’s BBQ sauce with the red and yellow label. The ingredients that we have is not more of just dumped in, but there’s a technique to the way that we make our sauce. There’s a certain point when you add this to that. I’m not going to tell you exactly what it is. When you add it all together, that gives it a different flavor. It’s basically somewhat of the same ingredients, but less ingredients than the red and yellow label, but totally different flavor.

Bill West:
People can come by the store in Hemingway and pick up a gallon or half-gallon, I think I saw in there.

Rodney Scott:
Oh, yeah.

Bill West:
Is that something you want to do down the road, do a commercial sauce, or are you even worried about that?

Rodney Scott:
It’s still a thought. I would love for everybody to be able to get their hands on it. At the same time, I’d love for everybody to come out and see what we do, how we do it and enjoy the experience of visiting a rural BBQ spot out in country, and kind of see what it was like to see us as we grew up in the country, cooking whole hogs, eating pork. Then, you get to buy your sauce and your pork all at the same time, get an experience, and go back.

Bill West:
Yeah. Do a lot of people take a tour, or is that just whoever asks?

Rodney Scott:
Man, quite a few people come through wanting to walk through the pits, and of course I walk them through.

Bill West:
You don’t mind?

Rodney Scott:
I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all.

Bill West:
That’s a great experience, and actually, I saw the article in the newspaper six months ago, Charleston paper, about it being a whole new pit. It is space-age greenhouse meets smokehouse. What happened to the old smokehouse, and who designed this new thing and how’s it been working?

Rodney Scott:
Well, the old smokehouse was made out of cinderblock. There were three feet of cinderblock and the rest was wood. The insides were made out of a metal, an FRP material, and we had a fire. Pit fire led to the whole building catching and burning, and had to rebuild. Before we rebuilt, we consulted with some good friends, one of them being Reggie Gibson. He designed the new BBQ pit that you see now.

Bill West:
Any regrets? Anything you could change at this point?

Rodney Scott:
No regrets, none at all. I appreciate the pit itself. It’s different. It’s a lot cooler, a lot more spacious. It’s great to work in, and it has a sound system.

Bill West:
Yeah, yeah. Do you have to deal with noise ordinance out there?

Rodney Scott:
No. That’s the beauty of the country.

Bill West:
You were rocking and rolling when I was—I said I heard Clarence Carter stroking.

Rodney Scott:
Got to be stroking. Got to be stroking.

Bill West:
You have any plans to open up another location?

Rodney Scott:
Yes, definitely. Definitely want to open up another location. Being very cautious about where I go and what I want to do and how I want to do it. I would like to do it the same way I do it in Hemingway. Of course, my first choice is still Charleston.

Bill West:
Right. Would you look downtown, or would you look on the outskirts?

Rodney Scott:
Wow. Kind of torn. I love it downtown. There was one thought of having a rural feel to it, even in the city where there’s a little trip, but not too far. It’s kind of in between that right now.

Bill West:
Right. Y’all heard it here. Of all the big chains, what would you recommend—who does really good BBQ on a large scale?

Rodney Scott:
Really good beautiful on a large scale? Jim ‘N Nick’s BBQ. I don’t see them as a chain. I see them as a family.

Bill West:
And you know those guys, right?

Rodney Scott:
I know those guys very well.

Bill West:
They certainly do it right. I always said, if you don’t smell smoke when you go by, there’s an issue, and you definitely—

Rodney Scott:
Something’s wrong.

Bill West:
You smell smoke there, and actually there’s a lot of guys in town that do it the right way. Once you get out of South Carolina, though—

Rodney Scott:
It gets a little different. It gets a little different.

Bill West:
All of the greatest BBQ joints across the country, what would you say, what are in the top five?

Rodney Scott:
Wow. Of course, I just mentioned Jim ‘N Nick’s. Sam Jones over in North Carolina. Winterville, North Carolina. Great friend of mine. You got Pat Martin over in Tennessee. You got 4505 out in San Francisco. Those guys are great.

Bill West:
Are they doing hog? Are they doing their own thing?

Rodney Scott:
They’re all doing hogs. You’ve got Pegleg Porker over there in Nashville as well.

Bill West:
Really? There’s probably only a handful of people that are doing whole hog, though, right?

Rodney Scott:
Yeah.

Bill West:
Here, I guess probably Sweatman’s. I guess they’re doing whole hog.

Rodney Scott:
Yeah. I think Sweatman’s is still doing whole hogs.

Bill West:
Around here, of course, yeah. But really not that many.

Rodney Scott:
Yeah. When you leave the Southeast, it tends to get a little smaller as far as whole hogs go, from my travels. If they’re out there, they’re hidden. I’d love to find them and see what they’re doing and enjoy somebody else’s BBQ as well, but I have no idea who’s all doing whole hogs other than in the Southeast.

Bill West:
All right. I’ll wrap it up here. First of all, we brought the Heinz—you mentioned Sam.

Rodney Scott:
Sam Jones. Sam Jones, everybody.

Bill West:
Had you seen this before?

Rodney Scott:
I’ve seen it online. I’ve seen a couple of pictures, and Sam Jones is a great guy, very funny guy. Another guy that’s very into music like I am.

Bill West:
He’s into, you said, into the classic country.

Rodney Scott:
Yeah. He’s mostly into classic country.

Bill West:
We’ll get Sam on at some point. We need to talk to him about some country music.

Rodney Scott:
You’d love Sam Jones. He teaches me country music.

Bill West:
We mentioned, I’m holding in my hand, Heinz, they have a four-pack of four different sauces that were endorsed by regional guys, and the Carolina vinegar tangy was Sam Jones’s. He’s the partner there. So, kind of cool. All right. Real quick questions. I’m going to try to do rapid-fire. I have a feeling I know that we’re going to go down a rabbit trail here. What would you say the best place to get a hotdog is?

Rodney Scott:
Wow. Best place to get a hotdog? My favorite hotdog that I’ve had?

Bill West:
Yeah.

Rodney Scott:
Out in the county, in Pleasant Hill, there’s a little store called W.T. Owens. It’s about eight miles from my place in Hemingway. I will drive all the way out there just to get a hotdog.

Bill West:
Good answer. Favorite cheese?

Rodney Scott:
Favorite cheese? A lot of folks in my area call it hook cheese, which is basically a sharp cheddar. It’s sold in a round, wooden case, and it has a red rag around it. That’s how it’s recognized in my area, as a red rag. I have to say sharp cheddar.

Bill West:
Sharp cheddar. Lastly, your favorite chef? You got a favorite TV chef? Or real-life, real-world chef?

Rodney Scott:
Man, it’s so many. It’s so many favorite cooks out there. Friends, chefs, man that’s a toss-up.

Bill West:
You’ve kind of seen them all.

Rodney Scott:
I’ve seen quite a few. Quite a few. There’s quite a few that I know, guys from New Orleans. Don Link, Steven, Ryan, these guys out of Herbsaint and Peche down there. Nick Pihakis, great guy.

Bill West:
That’s Jim ‘N Nicks, right?

Rodney Scott:
That’s Jim ‘N Nicks. BBQ as well as some of his even Greek dishes, amazing. The list can go on and on. Sean Brock, Mike Lata. All of these guys.

Bill West:
A lot of these guys are right downtown.

Rodney Scott:
Yeah. These guys right around town here. They’re just great. If I go to your spot more than once, I like your food. Trust me.

Bill West:
Finally, what’s on your playlist in the smokehouse?

Rodney Scott:
Wow. My playlist in the smokehouse ranges from Clarence Carter to Michael Jackson. A lot of old-school hip-hop with Run DMC, Big Daddy Kane, Fat Boys. A lot of Anthony Hamilton. One of my favorite artists, Anthony Hamilton. You may hear him. Then, there’s another list that I have. You may hear Smokey and the Bandits theme song by Jerry Reed. You’ll hear Conway Twitty.

Bill West:
Favorite country song was?

Rodney Scott:
Oh, man. I have to say The Gambler. The Gambler would have to be one of my favorites, but Johnny Cash, oh my God. Johnny Cash.

Bill West:
You said you kind of know some of the Rucker fam, but you said—

Rodney Scott:
Wagon Wheel, yeah. Darius Rucker, Wagon Wheel, as well as the song with Lionel Richie that he did. What’s the title of the song?

Bill West:
Was it Stuck on You?

Rodney Scott:
Stuck on You, yeah. That one as well.

Bill West:
Man, I appreciate you giving us some of your time. It’s Scott’s BBQ. Hemingway, South Carolina, if you’re ever running through. You need to get that mail order business going.

Rodney Scott:
Oh, man. I’m working on it.

Bill West:
I know the guys at Rendezvous in Memphis. They do a crazy business with that. Of course, they’ve got the FedEx hub right there in their backyard.

Rodney Scott:
Yeah. They’ve got everything going, all the FedEx planes are in Memphis.

Bill West:
But go stop by and see Rodney Scott in Hemingway, South Carolina and keep an eye out for him all over the place. How do people get ahold of you if they want to find out more about all the stuff you got going?

Rodney Scott:
If you want to find out everything, I’m on Twitter @RodneyScottBBQ. I am on Facebook, Scott’s BBQ. You can also reach out to me. Hey, call the shop. 843-558-0134, basically how you’ll find me.

Bill West:
You’re there running things.

Rodney Scott:
I’m doing the best I can.

Bill West:
Rodney Scott. Bud, thank you for coming.

Rodney Scott:
Thank you.

Bill West:
Hey, that’s a wrap for me. It’s Bill West, BBQTricks.com; also NashFM969.com, if you want to find out more about us. Also, I’ve got to thank the crew over at NashCountryDaily.com for sharing out the podcast. Make sure you subscribe there. Jump online to iTunes or audioBoom and make a comment, make a rating, and follow us. It definitely helps spread the word about all the good country music. Plus, I’m taking some select reviewers and rewarding you with some music and things like that. More about me. Jump over to my website, BBQTricks.com. I just released a book called the BBQ Blueprint. I would love for you to check that out. If you don’t want to take the plunge a purchase that book just yet, how about a freebie there, which is a free book called BBQ Sauces and Sides just for checking in. We’d love to give that to you. Thanks again to Rodney Scott, Hemingway’s Scott’s BBQ. If you’re ever in the area out there, in the whole state of South Carolina, make a run up the road and see Rodney for the best whole hog that you will ever find. Also, by the way, the BBQ Blueprint book, I chat more in depth with how Rodney cooks his whole hogs. I’m going to leave you with a last words today from the late, great actor Humphrey Bogart, who once said, a hotdog at the ballgame beats roast beef at the Ritz.
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