With a smoker more than two-metres tall working long hours cooking low and slow in a building adjacent to the restaurant, Moonshine BBQ Smokehouse has been cranking out brisket, ribs pulled pork and pork shank in Hawkesbury for just over five years.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a family business, according to Fred Beaver who oversees day-to-day operations at Moonshine.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started this venture sort of dabbling. It\u2019s a love of ours, a hobby. We ended up catering a few weddings for friends and family and demand grew. So, we decided to give a restaurant a whirl. That was six years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
That business model, shall we say, is a tried and true one for barbecue restaurants, in my experience: smoking aficionados start out with a food truck (Moonshine has truck that heads to various area events) that they take to competitions or for catering, and they evolve their expertise into a bricks-and-mortar restaurant.<\/p>\n
Today, the Moonshine menu has about 60 items, including upgrades, sides, a kids\u2019 menu and desserts.<\/p>\n
You can find the restaurant by looking for the pink pig inflatable that sits on the roof.<\/p>\n
Barbacoa in the beginning<\/strong><\/p>\n There are two aspects to barbecue. Just about everyone has a barbecue in their backyard: either gas or charcoal.<\/p>\n A summertime rite of passage, grilling meats and veg on a barbecue grill is nothing short of a magical food experience, but it usually means cooking relatively quickly and at a high temperature.<\/p>\n Southern U.S.-style barbecue, on the other hand, is low-and-slow cooking in which meats are smoked until tender and infused with flavour.<\/p>\n Abbreviated to \u201cBBQ,\u201d barbecue has a complex history that reaches to the 17th century when Spanish pirates and explorers stole the Taino word \u201cbarbacoa\u201d \u2013 and a lot more \u2013 from this Haitian tribe.<\/p>\n In its earliest form, a barbacoa was a structure of poles erected to cook food. It has evolved in numerous forms from pits dug in the ground to the high-intensity infrared-heat generated in expensive stainless steel boxes we are familiar with today.<\/p>\n Along the way, people in the southern United States \u2013 very much driven by descendants of slaves \u2013 embraced and perfected the cooking technique that involved wood-fired cooking and smoking of proteins like pork and beef.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a highly regional food: the mustard sauces of the Carolinas, Kansas City-style sauces, Memphis pulled pork sandwiches, Texas brisket, St. Louis-cut pork ribs.<\/p>\n Kansas City meets Quebecois flavours<\/strong><\/p>\n To that scrumptious variety, we can add the barbecue style that draws on Canadian meats, sourced from local farms, that are on the menu at Moonshine BBQ Smokehouse.<\/p>\n \u201cWe basically smoke everything in-house and merge multiple barbecue styles,\u201d says Beaver. \u201cWe\u2019ve got Carolina, Memphis and Kansas City barbecue, as well as brisket that is close to Texas style.\u201d<\/p>\n Ingredients and techniques see U.S. style married with Quebecois flavours.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do our own in-house rub, which includes some maple salt. It\u2019s Canadian Quebecois kind of, like our traditional maple beans. We have a beautiful mustard sauce, which is similar to Kansas City and Carolina barbecue too.\u201d<\/p>\n To achieve that in part, Moonshine smokes with maple, cherry and hickory \u2013 a process that often takes more than 16 hours.<\/p>\n The result is nine appetizers that range from wings and jalapeno poppers to French onion soup and Moonshine\u2019s house-made cheese on their \u201chill billy\u201d nachos.<\/p>\n There are a few salads and poutines, along with \u201cClassics\u201d that include a hot chicken sandwich, an in-house minced hamburger steak and a Montreal smoked meat.<\/p>\n The rest of the menu pretty much gives itself over to classic barbecue, a section of which is headed up \u201cMeats.\u201d That means smoked chicken, beef and pork \u2013 the latter, in its pulled pork form, and a few slices of brisket would count as favourite barbecue dishes for Beaver.<\/p>\n Reading the descriptions of the \u201cChampion 2\u201d and \u201cChampion 4\u201d dishes quickly make sense as shareable aluminum sheet-pan platters for two or four diners. It\u2019s quite a bit of food to eat.<\/p>\n Seeking \u201cperfect\u201d barbecue<\/strong><\/p>\n Coming out of the uncertainty of the pandemic years had its complications, according to Beaver, but the business made good choices and has been able to weather higher costs.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re lucky we have good, local suppliers and were able to kind of lock in (prices). We also buy a lot of product, so that helped keep things reasonable. I think, particularly in the restaurant industry, you have to kind of go with the swings. And as things change, you change also. That\u2019s what we\u2019ve aimed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n But barbecue can be tricky: customers want the large servings conventionally found at smokehouses but still expect relatively inexpensive prices. For<\/p>\n Beaver, that means adapting items like pricey beef short ribs to maximize value for their guests.<\/p>\n Given the restaurant\u2019s current success, Beaver anticipates that Moonshine is a long-term venture with a bright future, and he credits a solid customer base but also staff.<\/p>\n \u201cA shout-out to the whole team,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re rock stars.\u201d<\/p>\n The past five or six years is no guarantee of five more: like many sectors and niches of the food industry, you can\u2019t ride on your laurels, and barbecue requires something of a continuous education that seeks better techniques to an unattainable perfection.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve travelled and eaten barbecue in the U.S. to draw inspiration,\u201d says Beaver. \u201cThe best way to perfect barbecue is to taste more barbecue.\u201d<\/p>\n Food writer Andrew Coppolino lives in Rockland. He is the author of \u201cFarm to Table\u201d and co-author of \u201cCooking with Shakespeare.\u201d Follow him on Instagram @andrewcoppolino.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With a smoker more than two-metres tall working long hours cooking low and slow in a building adjacent to the restaurant, Moonshine BBQ Smokehouse has been cranking out brisket, ribs pulled pork and pork shank in Hawkesbury for just over five years. It\u2019s a family business, according to Fred Beaver who oversees day-to-day operations at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":103436,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-affaires"],"acf":[],"featured_media_global":[],"yoast_head":"\n