Page 37 - February 2022 Barbecue News Magazine

Don’t let the cute names fool you, these seasonings are the real deal and are top notch. How good are they? Well the Wright’s use them in competition and Rylee placed 7th in Hassell Cattle Com- pany’s SCA Ancillary points chase and 52nd in Ace Hardware’s SCA Steak points chase in 2021. Rylee is versatile in her cooking equipment choices having 1st place wins on the Big Green Egg, the PK and the MGrill C4 - with and without grill marks.
The path to bringing a product to market has a few twists and turns. Initially her products were in resealable pouches to help with the clumping the seasoning experienced in Florida’s humid- ity. However, bottles eventually won out due to their familiarity to cooks and retailers. Finding more uses for each product helps drive increased sales. For example, her Cajun Firefly Dust is a perfect addition to pasta, sauces and chicken. While her Fiesta seasoning with its southwest flavor notes is perfect in taco meat or mixed with sour cream for a dip. All of her seasonings are well balanced and are intentionally not developed around regional fla- vor profiles. Sometimes mistakes are just what the creative process needs. When developing Sweet Rapture, smoked paprika was accidentally used instead of sweet paprika. An accident that not only improved the flavor profile, but also made it into the final product. Similarly, when developing Firefly Dust, a mix-up in peppers resulted in African Bird Peppers being added to the test batch. A gallon a of milk later, it was decided that the pepper choice wouldn’t be used for the final product.
Being 15 and a young women has it challenges when it comes to getting your product into the marketplace and being taken seri- ously in a male-dominated sport. It would be easy for Rylee’s par- ents to “helicopter” in and take over, but that isn’t the way it works in the Wright household. Clearly Rylee can hold her own and then some. Rylee capitalized on an introduction from Tuffy Stone to the Pitmaster from Buc-ee’s. It could have ended with only a photo opportunity. However, Rylee followed up, personally making the presentations and closing the sale. The result? Rylee’s products are now in over 50% of the 40 Buc-ee’s stores! In addition to Buc-ee’s, Rylee’s seasonings can be found on-line, in select BBQ stores and directly from her.
Look what Barbecue News Magazine publisher Kell Phelps found at Buc-ee’s
Deciding which competitions to attend isn’t always an easy deci- sion. The Wright’s have a 3–4-hour travel rule that helps them maintain some normalcy in their household. When Rylee wanted
to go to a contest in Arkansas outside of the 3–4-hour travel win- dow, Russell requested a presentation and cost benefit from Rylee as to why it made sense for them to attend. Chalk another one up for Rylee’s tenacity and another life lesson learned thanks to Karen and Russell.
And yes, Rylee is also a typical 15-year-old. She plays high school soccer and flag football, has begun her college search starting with Old Miss and their culinary program and continues to be a fearless competitive cook and entrepreneur.
So how good are William’s and Rylee’s seasonings? Well, I have been a fan of both of their seasonings for some time but decided to put them through their paces again on a PKGO provided by Gene Westerbuhr at Crawford Outdoor – an authorized PK distrib- utor. I have tested many different grills trying to find the magic balance of cooking quality and portability – especially for the SCA. I think I have found it in the PKGO. It flawlessly cooked steaks, burgers and chops giving just the right amount of smoke that didn’t overpower the proteins or seasonings. The ability to control the temperature of the grill, the temperature of the grill grates, a tightly closing lid and a generous amount of grill space allowing for two zone cooking are the differentiating pluses from what I had been using. The combination of the PKGO with the balanced seasonings from
William and Rylee is a per- fect combination.
If you like this article, please let us know at mnbbq@out- look.com. Judging from the number of seasonings and sauces in our collection, I would like to continue the article series with sauce and seasoning entrepreneurs that are continually striving to improve the food we
cook. Please let us know which seasonings, rubs or sauces interests you so we can write about those first.
In the world of BBQ ... it’s the people you meet ... and the friends you make.
FEBRUARY 2022
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