At the end of 2014, after almost a year in Texas, Dave became obsessed with the idea of getting our dad a meat smoker. Never mind that dad had never shown any indication that he wanted to start smoking anything. He ended up getting him a 30 gallon pit barrel cooker. It took our dad MONTHS to unpack the thing, set it up and actually do anything with it (and this only after Dave came for a visit to NJ and showed him hours of videos for inspiration). If you know anything about our dad it’s that he can’t resist good food/drink. The first smoking experiment involved a few racks of ribs, which they undoubtedly taste-tested more of during the smoking process than we actually ended up with for dinner.

In the months since then, our dad, David, and I had an ongoing group text (and of course the messages usually arrived at inappropriate times, like during talks and lectures) where they would send each other pictures of what they’d made in the smoker — smoked steaks, smoked chickens, and tons of ribs — with elaborate descriptions of marinades and sauces.

One of  Dave’s sauces involved the combination of chipotle bbq sauce, sriracha, and fireball. In Dave’s words: “Really Good!”

While I may have some doubts about that combo, I think we all know it’s not surprising that Dave would love a sauce with Fireball in it.

Taste-testing with Pretzel.