Mr. Spikes’ passion for cooking barbecue commenced during his youth while listening to riveting stories told by Jessie Carter - a brother-in-law - about men cooking whole hogs overnight in a pit dug in the ground while drinking moonshine liquor and spinning great tales of their own. During the years thereafter, his recollections of time spent with Carter encouraged him to try the fabled art in his own back yard – often with mixed results.

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Later, these recollections enabled him to speak so knowingly and convincingly about this genre of cooking that, at the end of a term of study in Bourges, France in May 1970, his professor, John Rassias, suggested they treat the family with whom Mr. Spikes lived – and of whom Prof. Rassias had also become very fond -  to “something very American”.

"Why not barbecue?", he posed.

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This suggestion was only natural, given the enthusiastic manner with which Mr. Spikes had repeatedly shared his barbecue stories with anyone who would listen – sometimes even boasting about his ability to tell the good barbecue from the bad.

 

A picturesque area by a lovely stream in the French countryside was chosen as the venue.  On the fateful Saturday morning of the cookout, Mr. Spikes accompanied his “French mother” to the butcher shop to collect the needed meat and cooking supplies. The first red flag should, perhaps, have been the absence of the only meat he had ever witnessed being barbecued - pork spareribs. This butcher sold only beef ribs! Next, instead of the hickory/oak wood and/or charcoal briquettes with which Mr. Spikes was familiar, this butcher sold only charbon (i.e., lump charcoal). Further, there was no lighter fluid anywhere to be found.

 

Without lighter fluid, Mr. Spikes was at a complete loss as to how to ignite this totally unfamiliar cooking fuel. Greatly embarrassed after finally lighting it  some 2 hours later than planned, Mr. Spikes placed the ribs on the fire with the charcoal still hotly ablaze. To make matters worse, he then slathered on a sugary barbecue sauce!

 

"I now know why folks put sauce on barbecue", Prof. Rassias observed with a chuckle. "It's to cover up the burns!"

 

Undeterred – or even the least bit discouraged - this failure commenced what became a twenty-five-year quest to produce the "Best Que This Side Of heaven" on a commercial basis. Mr. Spikes' passion deepened when, in 1979, he started to experiment with a barbecue sauce recipe that he and others liked. During the next fifteen years, he developed the recipes, processes and procedures he uses today to produce his smoked and grilled meat products, together with three uniquely flavored barbecue sauces and rubs.