Page 8 - April 2022 Barbecue News Magazine

Carlene Phelps
info@barbecuenews.com
Whether your career in barbecue spans sixty days or sixty years we all have a story. The Barbecue News Magazine has shared many over the past 32 years and look forward to many more.
Let’s begin the Tim
“Briggy” Brigman story
back in his high school
days in Forest City, NC
(southwestern NC near
Tennessee border) where
he was an employee at
Hickory Log BBQ in Forest City and his first cousin, Dale Rober- son, was the manager for some 20 years. Tim chose an early career in law enforcement with the Rutherford Sheriff’s Office but his thoughts of cooking barbecue were
never far behind.
Tim, and wife Anna, enjoyed the fam- ily togetherness that seemed to flour- ish when the pit was smoking and the aroma of barbecue smoke filled the air. About 2012 Tim decided to look at an alternative career and admits to being influenced by the “BBQ Pitmas- ters” TV show. They did a lot of smok- ing and grilling with their family and friends and always had a hankering to enter competition cooking in the Blue Ridge BBQ Festival in Tryon, NC. The event closed the year he was ready to
put his barbecue recipes to the test and instead at- tended the Beer, Bourbon & BBQ Festival in Char- lotte in 2015. The team was ready to pull out, even before the awards, but someone said, “I think you might want to wait until after the awards!” The Circle B BBQ Team stayed and collected on first place in the Whole Chicken Cate- gory along with Grand Champion honors! Not
only did this boost their BBQ passion — it also increased their confidence! Things Circle Bwere getting BBQ serious.
By the time 2017 rolled around they had developed their Circle B RANT Bar-B-Que Sauce and were operating their Circle B Bar-B-Que Food Truck. The name of the sauce comes from their family names: R for Robert, A for Anna, N for Nathan and T for Tim — thus RANT. It’s a vinegar based North Carolina style sauce and has become the sauce of choice for their many customers and a 1st Place Sauce competition winner too!
The story skips forward to February 4, 2020 when the family takes a huge leap of faith and opens their brick and
BarbecueNews.com - 8
APRIL 2022
Barbecue Success Story:
The Brigman Family, Forest City, NC