Competition barbecue is serious business. The guys who enter these contests talk about their next rack of ribs like they’re building the Brooklyn Bridge. They’ve spent a lifetime experimenting with different woods, temperatures, and sauces. Ask any one of them what spices they put in their meat rub, and they’ll give you the same answer: “I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you.” (This isn’t threatening. A surprisingly high number of grill guys also happen to look like Santa Claus.)
Now imagine these enthusiasts’ shock when Aaron Bourdage and his wife Missy Fisher won first place in their first barbecue competition eight years ago. Their beards must have curled.
“It all came from out of the blue,” said Aaron. “One night Missy and I were cooking ribs. Instead of running out to the store for sauce, we made our own. We loved it. The kids loved it. We started giving it out as gifts, and everyone else loved it. A buddy of mine told me to enter a competition with it, and even though we had never done that before, our sauce turned out to be our secret weapon.”
In competition barbecue, you submit your meat in a simple, styrofoam box to ensure unbiased judging. As Aaron and Missy’s box was numbered 19, they named their sauce after it. Lucky 19 barbecue sauce is now available in three flavors: Pablo Honey, The Devil’s Own made with ghost chili peppers, and Kansas City style Sweet Lil’ Devil.
With an auspicious start like that, Aaron and Missy had to continue grilling competitively. And when they heard their friend was selling his local barbecue supply store, it felt only natural that they commit the rest of their lives to the pit. Aaron and Missy found a great partner in former national champion Jeff Vanderlinde, whom you may have seen on TV shows including BBQ Pitmasters. The trio thus opened Minnetonka’s own Northern Fire Grilling & BBQ Supply in the spring of this year.
“I’ve seen pretty much every barbecue, grill, and smoker in action that you could imagine over the past ten years,” said Aaron. “Now, I’m not knocking other people’s products – but if you find it at Northern Fire, you can be sure I’ve identified it as a superior cooker.
“When you come into Northern Fire, we’re going to help you find the cooker that perfectly suits your needs. Maybe you’re an old pro who loves making burnt ends for your extended family. Maybe you just want to fire up a couple burgers on your deck every now and then. However you want to grill, we’ll give you the best quality for your money that the Twin Cities have to offer.
“You don’t have to babysit a grill like your father used to anymore. Today’s cookers are Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled! So long as you have its app on your phone, you can control a modern cooker’s temperature from anywhere in the world. You can even load recipes into it and count on perfect temperatures to cook your meat throughout the day. It’s a serious upgrade from plugging in a slow cooker before you go to work.”
Northern Fire looks like the big room James Bond would get all his gadgets in, but if he was a pitmaster instead of a spy. They are the only Yoder Smokers dealership in the Twin Cities. The Kansas-based manufacturer specializes in competition-grade cookers, as well as rugged pellet grills with integrated food probes and Wi-Fi capability. If you long for a better time when appliances didn’t include flimsy bits that eventually snap off, Yoder will bring you back to the past. Even their lightest cooker weighs a solid 255 pounds!
Northern Fire has a great selection of pellet grills by Traeger. Although it looks simplistic, a Traeger has the ability to grill, smoke, bake, roast, braise, and barbecue, and all with the hardwood of your choosing. They offer Primo’s classic kamado style grills, one of the East’s greatest contributions to barbecue since the invention of teriyaki sauce. Northern Fire also has an eye-catching line-up of Outlaw Smokers. (Aaron will beat you to the punch in pointing out that they look like hot rods.) Outlaw makes the genuine article, meant to be attended to throughout the day by a specialist focused entirely on making the world’s tastiest brisket.
For all of the impressive technology Northern Fire has in store, their simplest device is also their greatest seller: the Solo Stove, a happy stainless steel cylinder that delivers the awe of a fire pit right on your patio, but is 85 percent smokeless!
Northern Fire provides the high quality fuels you need to smoke any meat just right. Their charcoals by Rockwood and Jealous Devil contain no impurities for you to guess about during your dinnertime, and their pellets by Traeger and Dansons are 100 percent hardwood.
Perhaps most importantly, Northern Fire has the meats. “Do you remember how they used to advertise pork as the ‘other white meat?’” Aaron asks. “Well, that’s completely wrong – pork should never be white. We’ve partnered with Compart Family Farms, whose pork is just on another level of richness and flavor. They raise traditional Duroc pigs, and only breed stock that has passed their strict ultrasound test for marbling. We carry the best beef too, from Snake River Farms out of Boise. They raise top grade American Wagyu, which I can only describe as the most marbled and beefiest beef you’ll ever taste in your life.”
Northern Fire has all the barbecue paraphernalia a pitmaster could hope for: every flavor of wood, rub, and sauce (including the Lucky 19 that started it all), as well as knives by Hammer Stahl and famed Rochester craftsman Jeb Taylor. Go there for Aaron’s help finding the perfect new cooker or just to stock up on whatever you need to convert vegetarians. You can learn more about the Twin Cities’ finest locally-owned grill supply at northernfirebbq.com.