There's whiskey in them there hills! "That's some good chili! Whats your recipe? Well... I'd be lying if I told you there wasn't whiskey
in it!" And its true, the boys for Southern Comfort Cabin Rentals cooked a killer batch of chili for this years Fire and Ice Chili Cook Off in Downtown Blue Ridge.
The story starts on a family vacation to Blue Ridge, when the newest addition to the SoCo family cooked up an unusually excellent pot of chili, dubbed "sweet-heat". You could also call it a family tradition from now on. The recipe had been in development for several years and was under constant refinement. The latest ingredient a.k.a "whiskey" was not added to the recipe until another visit to Blue Ridge. Our chef Matt Maddox planned a bachelor party for one of his long time friends and it happen to be on the same weekend as the first Blue Ridge Fire and Ice Cook Off. Jokingly, this is when our plan started to brew out of a simple suggestion. "You should enter your chili next year!" the seed was planted.
Team SoCo Started cooking after work late on Friday night prior to the event. Due to Chili shortages the prior year the Blue Ridge Business Association modified the amount of chili to 10 gallons. The rules stated that teams must cook 5 gallons prior to the cook off and the cook another 5 gallons at the event. A small amount of the five gallons cooked at the event would be used for the Judges and the rest could be given as samples for the people choice award. Our communications intern from Reinhardt College was at the event to cover the festivities first hand. Here is what he wrote about the 2012 Fire and Ice Chili Cook Off.