WINTER HAVEN — Donating to a cause came with the smell of smoked barbecue on Saturday afternoon outside the Citrus Center Boys and Girls Club.
The nonprofit hosted the 14th annual Smoke on the Water BBQ Competition as dozens of professional and backyard barbecue teams put their product to the test. Proceeds from the event went to the Citrus Center Boys and Girls Club, which has facilities in Winter Haven, Haines City and Lake Wales.
“The food is as good as it gets,” said Hubert Decilian of Winter Haven, who regularly donates to the Boys and Girls Club. “Anything I can do to help the Boys and Girls Club, I’m down with that.”
Winter Haven’s Jim Elser, who owns professional team Sweet Smoke Q, was the grand champion in 2016 and has been featured on television shows such as “Destination America” and “Smoked.” Elser said Smoke on the Water was just his second event when he started participating in competitions and has since made a business out of it.
“It’s a lot of work week in and week out, and there’s a lot of good teams in Polk County,” Elser said. “We compete with the best every week. We do a lot of competitions and most are for charity. This is extra special because it’s our hometown competition and it’s for the kids.”
Friends Coleton Smith of Auburndale and Devon Grace of Winter Haven have been coming to the competition for about six years. Grace said it’s the food that brings him out.
“I try to get as much good barbecue as I can,” Grace said. “I check everything out. It’s just a really good venue.”
In addition to the food, the event featured live music, cold beer, seaplane rides and a performance from the Cypress Gardens Water Ski Team.
“We just love it,” said Donna Ginther of Auburndale, who came with friend Christine Love. “Usually, it rains, but this year, it’s really nice. I love tasting all the food and the good music.”
“It’s for a good cause,” Love said. “We got to support it.”
Jeff Carr and Brian Charles joined Dede and Tommy Shockley to form the backyard team, Swine Dynasty. Carr said the group wanted to find a way to separate themselves from the competition, so they started selling fried strawberries, fried pop tarts as well as pork, brisket and kickin’ chicken eggrolls.
“This is one of our favorite events because we’re from Auburndale and we know a lot of the people here,” Carr said. “We were sitting around trying to come up with something new that no one else was doing.”
The Shockleys, according to Carr, came up with the fried strawberry idea. It’s become the team’s most popular item.
“They’re really good,” Mackenzie Martin of Auburndale said of the strawberries.
Saturday’s event brought plenty of families out, but every event does that for Steven Daniels, co-pitmaster of Yep BBQ. Daniels said his team got its name, because he says “yep” a lot. The Winter Haven native is helped out at the competitions by his daughters and sons-in-law.
“You can’t replace this, because I get to spend a lot of time with my family,” Daniels said. “We all kind of think alike, so that’s a plus, too.”
Leta Short said she came out to support her husband Russel, who is part of the backyard team, Pull’n My Pork, but was hardly there against her will. Leta Short said they often donate billiard balls and basketballs to the Boys and Girls Club.
“We enjoy it,” she said. “It’s a pretty big event. Lakeland is probably the biggest, but this one is right up there with it.”
Mike Ferguson can be reached at Mike.Ferguson@theledger.com or 863-401-6981. Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeWFerguson.