Garden & Gun

garden & gun

David DiBenedetto Senior Vice President & Editor in Chief Executive Managing EditorPhillip Rhodes / Creative DirectorMarshall McKinney Photography and Visuals DirectorMaggie Brett Kennedy / Deputy EditorsAmanda Heckert, David Mezz Style DirectorHaskell Harris / Art DirectorJulia Knetzer / Photo Editor Margaret Houston Senior EditorCJ Lotz / Copy Chief Donna Levine Editorial AssistantCaroline Sanders / Art Production AssistantJacqueline Stofsick Chief Digital OfficerChris Kraft Digital DirectorKim Alexander / Digital Editor Dacey Orr Sivewright / Social Media Editor Olivia Dello Buono Digital Projects ManagerEmily Deal Contributing EditorsRoy Blount Jr., Rick Bragg, Dominique Browning, Monte Burke, Marshall Chapman, John Currence, John T. Edge, Clyde Edgerton, Charles Gaines, Allison Glock, Winston Groom, Mike Grudowski, Jessica B. Harris, Matt Hendrickson, Jack Hitt, Elizabeth Hutchison, Hunter Kennedy, Guy Martin, John Meroney, Jonathan Miles, T. Edward Nickens, Julia Reed, Daniel Wallace, Logan Ward Contributing…

a taste for barbecue

One of my all-time favorite dove shoots happened a little more than five years ago. It was a simple affair. My friend Jason Harkey had a field near Mayesville, South Carolina, that was holding a steady number of birds and also provided a perfect place to work our dogs, both Boykin spaniels. When I pulled up around noon, Jason had a Styrofoam clamshell filled with a couple of pounds of pulled pork from Scott’s Bar-B-Que in Hemingway on the tailgate, along with a loaf of Sunbeam white bread, a ziplock bag stuffed with fresh pork rinds, and two bottles of Red Rock strawberry soda. I don’t remember much about the birds or the dog work on that day, but I still think about that lunch. Jason is a bit of a…

how do you take your bourbon?

Recently, during a Pappy Van Winkle bourbon tasting at Blackberry Farm, at an event for members of our Garden & Gun Society, I asked Julian P. Van Winkle III if there was a correct way to drink bourbon. Neat? On the rocks? With a splash of water? Van Winkle is the president of the Old Rip Van Winkle Distillery. His answer? Any way you like it. He divulged that he sometimes adds one ice cube and a lemon twist to his Pappy, and he also makes a mean old-fashioned with it. In other words, whatever your preferred brand of bourbon, don’t let anyone tell you how you should or shouldn’t drink it.…

“barbecue is the most terrifying thing to write about. somebody’s going to get mad”

William Abranowicz PHOTOGRAPHER “In the South, the air often has a heaviness to it,” says William Abranowicz. As he captured images of a bayou estate for “Louisiana Timepiece” (p. 104), it rained. “But when the light came out late in the day and raked across all that moisture, it was magical,” he says. Abranowicz, a photographer for more than forty years, has shot for nearly every major publication in the United States, and his work appears in the collections of the Smithsonian. His upcoming photography book, inspired by the struggle for voting rights, took him all over the Deep South. Kathleen Purvis WRITER “Barbecue is the most terrifying thing to write about, because no matter what you say, somebody’s going to get mad at you,” says Kathleen Purvis. She swallowed her fear to research and…

“all this time i have been using my tomato server for cranberry sauce”

TOUCHING TRIBUTES Teary-eyed after reading Taylor Brown’s “Two for the Road” (June/July 2019). I lost my dad, too, and I cannot think of a more fitting way to think of him than as “a whisper in your mind.” Eddie Lewis Woodstock, Georgia In Ada Limón’s Good Dog (June/July 2019), I cried at “Lily Bean is the kindest soul I’ve ever known.” Our dogs are family, too. Deborah Martin Saint Helena Island, South Carolina WE AIM TO PLEASE What could be more Southern than an issue of G&G with Forrest Gump, the sons of the Allman Brothers Band, and floating gardenias (June/July 2019)? I think you covered it. Jennifer Powell The Woodlands, Texas All this time I have been using my tomato server (Tools, June/ July 2019) for cranberry sauce. What a faux pas. Tonya Russ Price Charlotte, North Carolina Y’ALL INCLUSIVE My family has subscribed…

social chatter

WE ASKED... What’s the best style of barbecue? On Facebook and Instagram, we started a food fight by asking you to name the South’s tastiest regional ’cue. I never met BBQ I didn’t like, but Memphis is my fave. @teresabaierl Texas style on Saturday night. Eastern North Carolina on Sunday after church. Johnathan Stancil Whole hog, because you get it all. Bob Christian North Alabama pulled pork, red sauce, hot mustard slaw. @fifty shadesofgrayson Vinegar above all. You want that sweet mess, go eat some molasses. @fouractual I bleed mustard sauce. Andrew Price Just like tacos, all types of barbecue are God’s children. All have their place. JacobWade If it’s pork, it’s BBQ. Don’t try to foist brisket or godforsaken chicken on me. Roger Davis My philosophy regarding BBQ, among other things: If you can’t be with the one you love,…