Tennessee smoke meets Wigram ale

By their own admission, Christchurch’s own Bootleg BBQ Co have come down a long and dangerous road. It sure takes some guts to import a specialist 400lb commercial pit smoker from Tennessee and build a BBQ joint up around it using timber and bricks salvaged from the quakes.

At Bootleg, taste extends past the plate and into the very fabric of the building.

“We got Rimu paneling from Riccarton House,” manager Charlie George tells us, “then we made a bar made out of railway sleepers from Lyttleton docks. The rest of our wood came from the old Lincoln Rd bus depot.”

Low and slow over smoke

“Then we decided to import a huge Southern Prime smoker from the States because we wanted something that could take whole logs of wood. Most restaurants don’t have the output we do so they tend to have very small smokers using wood chips. For us it’s the majority of our menu, we do ribs, smoked chickens, we even use it to smoke our own breadcrumbs and butter.”

Logs for the smoker are sourced from orchards in Nelson.

“We drive up and find trees at the end stage of their life and cut them down ourselves. At the moment we’re using pearwood and have about three months worth left, after that we’ll move onto the next orchard.”

Paired with this diligence under the hood is the Bootleg ethos that all ingredients should be free-range and locally-sourced.

“All of the meat we serve is farmed sustainably and ethically.” said Charlie. “The animals are grass fed. No cages, no pens, only open pasture. We use only Harmony pork for example, which means that the pigs are smaller and have SPCA animal welfare approval. How an animal lives adds more quality and flavour to the meat than any other aspect of the process.”

Once they’ve found the perfect cuts, Bootleg cook ‘em up low and slow over smoke.

Tender venison brisket


“We get great Venison from Mackay,” says Charlie, “but we hadn’t really heard of anyone else attempting a venison brisket. It’s a very hard dish to do because you’ve got to smoke it then pull it then mould it. It starts out as a very tough piece of meant so to get it nice and tender we cook it multiple times."

An ever-changing selection of 14 craft beers on tap means there’s always a striking pairing on offer.

”At the moment I really like the Wigram Brewery Smokey Porter because it goes so well with a rack of ribs. And from Good George brewery you have the APA on the strong side that you’d have with a Wanganui Tri Tip, or the Sparkling Ale which is great for cutting through something spicy like our buffalo wings.

Fight Night

For an All-American day out, head down to Bootleg BBQ this Sunday June 5th for a live screening of UFC 199: Rockhold vs Bisping 2 (World Middleweight Championship) and Crus vs Faber (World Bantamweight Championship) starting at 2pm. There’ll be more smoked brisket, bbq wings, and craft beer than you can shake a stick at.