So I’m down talking to the folks at Got Pig?, who advanced to the big league this year after a good run in Patio Porkers (when you win in Patio, you move up). For the past four years, they barbecued next to a team called Shipwracked from South Carolina and it was all a big party. This year some of the guys, including Hal Rhodes and Bernie Bastian, from South Carolina joined their team and they’re competing together. I tasted their beef brisket, barbecued chicken and dynamite  grouper and came away impressed. But this surprised me: When Rhodes and Bastian compete in Memphis, they change their sauce.

“They have to sweeten it up a little when they compete here,” team member Brian Janz said.

I always go for hot sauces, and though I know there’s sugar in barbecue sauce, the ones I use or make aren’t generally sweet, so I told Rhodes I was the exception when he mentioned that women tend to prefer sweeter sauces. However, you can’t argue with success.

“What we tasted in Patio Porkers was sweeter than we make, so that was when we started giving people what they wanted,”  Bastian said. “As soon as we started sweetening it up, we started placing.”

Got Pig? is a fun family team, mostly the Janzes and the Courts family. I wrote a story about them last year–they’re the ones who do Jaeger Bombs and even convinced me, with even the little kids cheering me on, to try one. It’s Jaegermeister and Red Bull, and while one was plenty for me, these things are popular.

“We have an infinite supply,” Tim Courts said. “We will never run out.” Competing teams come over and put in their orders. “If they ask for 20, they leave with 20,” he added. –Jennifer Biggs