When The Avett Brothers emerged from their Covid-19 hibernation with a concert at the Charlotte Motor Speedway in August, we made the most of it. While we couldn’t be there in person, we live-streamed the show by our fire pit and put out a spread worthy of the first show since Avetts at the Beach at the beginning of March.

Now, with the boys back in action for a victory lap, it’s time to share that menu with you. At Pasatiempo Barbecue, we believe in bringing people together through food, drinks, and music, and this is a chance to do all three. We hope you will use this as a base for your tailgate at the show or in-home live-stream experience during the show, but we also encourage you to come up with your own recipe ideas.

If you want to order our Down With the Swine rub, which is great on the Down With the Swine Ribs and The Perfect Swine Pulled Pork, among other things, you can do so here. Tag us on Instagram or on Facebook (@pasatiempobarbecue) and we’ll send you a limited edition Halloween variant Down With the Swine sticker!

Appetizers

Kick things off with a smoked salsa and/or chips and guac.

Smoke in Our Lights Salsa

Few things are better than fresh peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and lime juice blended together into a salsa. Smoke your peppers and veggies and you'll take it to a whole other level.

  • Fresh peppers
  • 4 Tomatillos
  • 2 Tomatoes
  • 1 Red onion
  • 4 cloves Garlic
  • 2 Limes
  • Kosher salt (to taste)
  • 1 bunch Cilantro
  1. Fire up your smoker to 225 degrees indirect using your choice of wood. You're going to be smoking peppers and veggies, not meat, so you need to be gentle with them.

  2. Cut your tomatoes and onion in half and remove the husk from the tomatillos

  3. Place all of your veggies and peppers onto your smoker grate and let go for about 60-90 minutes until they've collected plenty of smoke and are nice and tender. You just don't want them to burn.

  4. Place them all into your blender along with a few cloves of garlic (I like a lot, but use less if you don't like as much), juice from a couple of limes, and a bunch of chopped cilantro. Blend well.

  5. Salt to taste.

I purposely didn’t list what type of peppers to use because that’s the fun of making salsa. You can use what you have on hand, or in your garden, or you can go to the grocery store and have fun picking out the types of peppers you like based on flavor or heat level. 

Guac on Indolence

Ripe avocado. Lots of garlic. Fresh cilantro. Raw red onion. Fresh lime juice. Salivating yet? Well, what are you waiting for? Make some guac!

  • 5 Avocados
  • ½ Red onion
  • 4-6 cloves Garlic
  • 3 Limes
  • 1 bunch Cilantro
  • Kosher salt (to taste)
  1. Remove the pits from your avocadoes and scoop the flesh into a bowl. Mash up, leaving some chunks

  2. Dice up half of a red onion and add

  3. Add 4-6 cloves of garlic, depending on how much garlic you like (I love a lot of it)

  4. Squeeze the juice of 3 limes into the bowl

  5. Chop up a bunch of cilantro and add

  6. Stir to mix well. Add Kosher salt to taste

  7. Add ingredients as needed to taste. Want more garlic? Add it! More lime juice? Sure. More salt? Go for it!

Main Course

Next, get things going with some ribs or pulled pork rubbed with our Down With the Swine rub, which has a unique blend of maple sugar, bourbon-infused sea salt, and a sriracha kick. Both of these recipes also use a Cheerwine spritz to add to the flavor, color, and bark.

Down With the Swine Ribs ‘n Tips

Down With the Swine rub and a Cheerwine spritz provide great color and flavor to the bark of these ribs, while your favorite BBQ sauce gives the tips an added dimension.

  • 2 racks Spare Ribs
  • Yellow Mustard
  • Down With the Swine Rub
  • Parkay or Butter
  • Light Brown Sugar
  • Honey
  • 1 bottle Cheerwine
  • Your favorite sweet red BBQ sauce
  1. Fire up your smoker to 225 indirect using your choice of wood. I usually use oak and pecan, but fruit woods and hickory are also great for ribs.

Trimming Your Ribs

  1. Remove the silver skin from the underside of the ribs. With a dull knife lift up between the silver skin and the bone, and use a paper towel to pull the silver skin away and discard.

  2. Take a slicing knife and find the point between the end of the longest bone and the breastbone. Slice perpendicular to the ribs across to the other end. This removes the "tips" and creates a uniform rectangular "St. Louis cut" ribs.

Prepping Your Ribs

  1. Rub all sides with yellow mustard, then cover liberally with Down With the Swine

  2. Do the same with the pieces of rib tips

Cooking Your Ribs

  1. Place the racks of ribs and the rib tips on your grate meat side up. You're going to leave them this way for about 3 hours.

  2. After about an hour, spritz them with Cheerwine every 30 minutes to help provide color and add moisture.

  3. After 2 hours, place your rib tip pieces into a foil pan and douse with your BBQ sauce, then cover with foil and place back into the smoker.

  4. After about 3 hours, or once your ribs have a great reddish mahogany color, it's time to foil.

  5. Lay out a piece of foil and set a rack of ribs on it, face up, running long ways with the foil. Apply some Parkay/butter, light brown sugar, and honey, then flip it over and do the same to the underside. Now, fold the foil over the ribs and roll it twice until your ribs are still face down. Fold up the 2 ends of foil. Place the foiled rack of ribs back into your smoker, face down. Repeat with the other rack and let go for another 1.5 hours.

  6. After an hour and a half, carefully remove the ribs from the foil and place back onto your smoker grate face up. They should be really tender by now, so be careful not to break them apart. If you want to add sauce to them now is the time, but I usually don't because what we added to the foil is great as-is.

  7. At this point, also remove the foil from your foil pan and reapply sauce to your rib tips.

  8. Let these go for about 30 minutes to an hour, just long enough to finish and let the sticky butter/brown sugar/honey mixture to set on the top.

  9. Carefully transfer to a cutting board and slice into individual ribs.

or

The Perfect Swine Pulled Pork

Rubbed with the perfect sweet heat combination of maple sugar, bourbon-infused sea salt and sriracha in our Down With the Swine rub, and spritzed with the sweet cherry nectar of Cheerwine, this pulled pork will take you for a ride every time.

  • 9 pound Bone-in Pork Butt (Boneless works too)
  • Yellow Mustard ((or olive oil) as binder)
  • Down With the Swine rub
  • 2 bottles Cheerwine (for spritz)
  1. Fire up your smoker to 225

  2. Apply a coating of yellow mustard to your pork butt, then rub liberally with your Down With the Swine rub

  3. Place into the smoker with the fat cap facing the hottest portion of the smoker

  4. Let go for 3 hours without opening your smoker

  5. Spritz all over with Cheerwine every 30-40 minutes until internal temperature reaches 165

  6. Place pork butt into a half foil pan, fat cap down, with a bottle of Cheerwine covering the fat cap. Foil the top and put back into the smoker

  7. At 195 degrees internal, remove the foil and re-spritz with Cheerwine

  8. At 203 (or when bone is easy to pull out) remove from the smoker, re-foil the top, and place in a cooler to rest for at least 1 hour

  9. After resting, pull and serve

Side

Every good smoked meat needs a wingman and this Carolina-style slaw pairs perfectly with ribs and pulled pork.

Carolina Jubilee Slaw

A simple and tasty vinegar based slaw with just the slightest kick of heat that pairs perfectly with smoked meats.

  • 1 bag Diced Slaw mix ((shredded green cabbage and carrots))
  • ½ head Red cabbage
  • ½ Red onion
  • ½ cup White vinegar
  • 2 TBSP Vegetable oil
  • ½ cup Sugar
  • 1 tsp Salt
  • 1 tsp Dry mustard
  • ½ tsp Cumin
  • 1-3 Serrano peppers
  1. Pour your bag of slaw mix into a large bowl (of course, you can dice up your own green cabbage and carrots if you want, but I usually just skip that step)

  2. Dice up half of a head of red cabbage and add it to the bowl

  3. Dice up half a red onion and add to the bowl

  4. Add in ½ cup white vinegar, 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, ½ cup sugar, 1 teaspoon of Kosher salt, 1 teaspoon of dry mustard, and ½ teaspoon cumin

  5. Finely dice a serrano pepper (more if you like it hotter) and add to the mix

  6. Mix everything well and serve immediately, although it's better to place into the fridge for at least a couple hours to meld together

Dessert

You can’t forget dessert and since it’s almost the end of fig season, it’s time to put those tasty treats to work in a cast iron cobbler.

Slight Fig-ure of Speech Cobbler

Fresh figs and sweet bourbon in a warm smoked cobbler topped with melting vanilla ice cream is a combination that has to be eaten to be enjoyed. Don't believe me? I dare you to try it!

  • 20-25 Figs
  • 1 cup Flour
  • 2 Eggs
  • 1 cup Sugar (Halved)
  • 2 TBSP Butter
  • 2 TBSP Milk
  • ½ cup Bourbon
  • 1 tsp Baking Powder
  • ½ tsp Kosher Salt
  1. Fire up your smoker to 350 degrees (or your oven) indirect using your choice of wood.

  2. Slice your figs in half length-wise

  3. In a bowl, mix 1 cup of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, and half a teaspoon of Kosher salt

  4. In a separate bowl, beat 2 eggs

  5. Mix in 1 cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons of butter, and 2 tablespoons of milk to the eggs

  6. Pour the flour mixture into your wet ingredients and mix well

  7. Pour into your cast iron pan

  8. On the stove, boil your half cup of bourbon along with half cup of sugar for a few minutes. Remove from heat, add your figs, and mix them in.

  9. Pour your bourbon/fig mixture over the top of your batter in your cast iron pan

  10. Place into your smoker or oven and cook 25-30 minutes until the batter has set and is golden brown

  11. Serve warm or with vanilla ice cream

Drinks

Of course, you can’t forget the libations, so put the rest of those figs to use in a tasty twist on the classic bourbon smash.

When I Drink Fig Bourbon Smash

A slight twist on the classic bourbon smash, using the tart flavor of figs instead of lemon, this is a tasty drink that looks as good as it tastes.

  • ¾ oz Simple syrup
  • 2 oz Bourbon
  • 1 Fig
  • 2 Fresh mint leaves
  1. In a cocktail shaker, muddle half of a fig along with ¾ ounce of simple syrup and a fresh mint leaf

  2. Add 2 oz of bourbon and fill the shaker with ice

  3. Stir

  4. Fill a rocks glass with ice

  5. Strain the drink into the glass

  6. Top with the other half of the fig and a mint leaf

Have you tried our Down With the Swine rub? We would love a review or a tag on social media. In addition, if you try any of these recipes, please review them or share them on social media as well!

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