Speaker 1: I'm Daniel Vaughn, barbecue editor at Texas Monthly, and this
was Fire and Smoke, the Texas Monthly Barbecue podcast, brought
to you by YETI. So I traveled to cloud Craft,
New Mexico, recently, had to fly out to El Paso
and then drive ninety minutes to get to mad Jack's barbecue.
The funny thing is I had already eaten there before.
It's just when mad Jack had a food truck in Lockhart, Texas.
It was funny because I asked him there, did he
truly earn the title mad Jack by opening a barbecue
trailer in Lockhart or by opening a Texas barbecue joint
out in New Mexico. He said he thinks it was
probably in Lockhart. But it was funny because talking to him,
he was obsessed with the quality of his barbecue, like
any pitmaster was, but he didn't feel like he was
really in the game. He wanted to move back to Texas,
and the big reason was is he wanted to make
the Texas Monthly Top fifty. I found that endearing and
it's just kind of funny to see how that list
is held up even way out in New Mexico. So
let's head to New Mexico for some Lockhart style barbecue.
Kirk Jackson didn't like banks. For years, unbeknownst to his family,
he stuffed cash into tackle boxes, jars, and toolboxes and
hid them in the trunk of a junked out nineteen
seventy one Mercury Montigo. It sat behind his car lot
in Lockhart, Texas for decades, along with all the other
trade ends he couldn't auction off. Just before Jackson's death
in twenty fourteen, he motioned from his hospital bed to
his son James, to come closer. Whatever you do, he said,
don't get rid of the seventy one Mercury Montigo. A
year later, after James found the stash of cash inside,
he used his portion to open a barbecue joint in
New Mexico. Mad Jack's Mountaintop Barbecue opened in twenty fifteen.
On the main drag through the town of Cloudcroft, amongst
the conifer trees and the winding mountain roads, you can
look down upon the gleaming White Sands National Park. The
Texas border is just ninety minutes away, but it takes
James Jackson eleven hours to get back to his home
of Lockhart.
Speaker 2: About every six to eight weeks. I go back to Lockhart,
get a little post Oak. You can't have good Central
Texas barbecue without some good Central Texas post Oak, and
I'll go by Christ's Marketing, visit old friend Roy Perris,
and pick up five six hundred pounds of sausage. Then
I always stopped by to see my kids. That's been
the hardest thing about being so far from Lockhart is
missing my family. So I'll stop buying and see my children,
my son Johnny, my daughter Mallory, and I have a
half sister in Austin, and I'll stop buy and say
hi to her.
Speaker 1: Jackson didn't have a job when he graduated high school
in nineteen eighty, so he started working with his father
at the Chrysler Plymouth Dodge dealership.
Speaker 2: So I thought, you know, I'll go help dad for
a year or two until I've kind of figured it
all out. I thought I'd end up going to college,
but ended up staying for thirty years helping dad, So
stay there a lot longer than I intended, but had
a lot of French benefits. I was able to leave
get away if I need to go see my kids
in a school play or such, and I got to
be with my dad for thirty years every day, so
that was kind of cool.
Speaker 1: When the government bailed out Chrysler, they liquidated many small dealerships,
including the one in Lockhart.
Speaker 2: So my dad lost his franchise in nine and we
started doing just used vehicles, mostly pickup trucks, And you
know that was I think that was a nail in
the coffin. I really didn't want to be a used
car dealer. And the trailer scene in Austin had taken off,
and the light bulb went off my head thought of
maybe I'd try something different. As a teenager, I'd worked
at Black's Barbecue, and I think I just had maybe
a little bit of that in my blood, going in
and out of those old historic barbecue joints my whole life.
Speaker 1: He always had a love of barbecue from growing up
in the barbecue capital of Texas, so we figured why
not just open a barbecue joint of his own. He'd
never cooked a brisket, but at least he knew what
the good stuff tasted like. Jackson bought a barbecue trailer
in twenty twelve. He barked it next to a gas
station along high Way three in Lockhart, and used the
best barbecue in Lockhart east of one eighty three as
the tagline, as all the other famous barbecue spots in
town were west of the highway. He was entering an
ultra competitive market in a small town with four other
famous barbecue spots, and naming his trailer mad Jack's seemed
an appropriate way to reflect that. He read as much
as he could about cooking brisket, watched the Barbecue with
Franklin videos, and even emailed Aaron Franklin about barbecue, who
answered nearly all his questions.
Speaker 2: I had to give him credit because he answered everything
I ever asked him. And I know he has to
be a crazy busy guy, but he helped me out
a lot. I mean, watching his YouTube videos. People are
kind of They usually think I'm joking when I tell
him this how to learn how to barbecue, But that
helped me quite a bit.
Speaker 1: He was doing a good business in Lockhart and could
even count Roy Perez, the famous Krit's Market pitmaster, as
a fan. But the city of Lockhart had other ideas.
The city made it hard to operate as a food truck.
They required permanent bathroom, so he built some then more
issues came to light. Jackson felt like every time he
had dressed an item on the city's wish list, something
else came up about proper drainage or electrical service. It
became untenable, so he shut the business down and began
looking for a new location. At the same time, his
father's health was failing. James and his brother Mark were
making frequent visits to the hospital, and on the final visit,
their father, Kirk, told him about the mercury and the
riches it held. After Kirk passed away, Mark used his
share of the cash to buy a vacation home in Cloudcroft,
where the family had spent many trips, and James I
had a two story building on the main road through town.
When the price on the building dropped, he scooped it
up and had a new home for mad Jack's. I
was there on a Thursday, so the line was shorter
than what they see on weekends, but it still reached
the porch soon after the eleven am opening. Jackson said
the line can take up to two hours and stretches
back to another barbecue joint that's just two doors down.
The owner of that joint comes outside and tries to
convince folks to get out of the line, but they wait.
Mad Jackson now has a reputation to uphold right.
Speaker 2: I moved to cloud Croft. You know, I knew we
had Holloman Air Force Base nearby, but I had no
idea what kind of effect is going to have on
our business. We get dozens of guys from Holloman. Guys
and gals from Holloman Air Force Base all the time,
and their families that come in from all over the
country to visit their children, and so we see those
guys all the time. And the amount of visitors we
had from Texas is incredible. I think about sixty five
percent of the homes in cloud Croft are owned by Texans.
So they get a big kick out of finding Central
Texas style barbecue At nine thousand feet up in the
Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico.
Speaker 1: There's a sign on the door warning customers that the
barbecue might run out before closing time.
Speaker 2: It took a little while from to adapt to that.
You know, us here in Central Texas, it's not a
big deal. We kind of know some of the best
places do run out at the afternoon. It was mostly
the locals there that really were confused about it and
didn't understand why we would close at three. But to
keep the quality where it needs to be, I think
that's the only way to do it.
Speaker 1: He has to teach a new Mexico clientele about the
Texas barbecue experience, which might require standing in line. It
also may mean that they can't get everything that they'd like.
Once they reached the chopping block, that's where Jackson and
his team slice every item to order, with the jn R.
Smoker sitting behind them as a backdrop. I tried a
little of everything. After a bite of the brisket and sausage,
I commended Jackson for being a great ambassador for Texas barbecue.
He nailed the brisket with a hefty bark, good smoke,
and just the right amount of tenderness. It would certainly
hold up in Lockhart today. Chrits would also be proud
of how juicy their links were coming out of Mad
Jack's smoker. I also enjoyed a slice of smoke turkey,
and all the sides were commendable, especially that potato salad
and the creamy mac and cheese. Thankfully, the menu isn't
pure Texas. There are some New Mexico touches, like the
Chili the Kid sandwich with rough chunks of brisket mixed
with chopped green chilies on a buttered bun. The sweetness
of the bun and the heat from the chilies are
nicely balanced, and the smoky salty brisket is as good
chopped as it is sliced. The sandwich is a nice
nod to New Mexico. Jackson says he still hasn't mastered ribs,
and I told him that I agreed. Stepping into Mad
Jacks felt like stepping into a Texas barbecue joint, despite
that we were in New Mexico. The layout, the cutting block,
and just the feel of the place was right. Lockhart
money funded the place, and some of it still serves
as decoration too. Some bills hadn't been stored properly in
that old mercury, and Jackson keeps those jars full of
rotted out cash as mementos. If you ask nicely, he'll
bring them down from the rafters for a closer look.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm fifty six years old and I'm not
gonna do this. You know, forever, I wish i'd have
started barbecuing earlier in my life. I would I could
think I would like to make it clearer that I
appreciate from my dad, leave me in a position to
where I could chase the stream. And Dad's gone now,
but I really wish he could see all the attention
of my place has gotten. We've gotten to meet the
Chief of Staff of the Air Force and been nominated
for Restaurant Tour of the Year twice in New Mexico already,
and we've had a lot of pats on my shoulder.
I think my dad would have really got a kick
out of I wish he could have seen that.
Speaker 1: I figured after three years he'd be happy with his
success in cloudcraft, but Jackson shared a goal to surprise.
Speaker 2: Me, you know, if I can master my poor grids,
which just recently we've made some changes and we're really
headed in the right direction. I'm very tempted to come
back and do something in Texas, even and Lockhart. We've
got to make sure Lockhart stays at barbecue capital in Texas. Texas.
Speaker 1: Barbecue is built from the ground up, from the wood
to the smoke to the meat. You have to have
the right tools to create a masterpiece on butcher paper
YETI coolers have you covered? Built to be indestructible, keep
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Yetti is built for Texas barbecue. You've been listening to
the Fire and Smoke Texas Monthly's barbecue podcast. I'm Daniel Vaughn,
working with producer Brian Standeford, and I'll see you out
there on the barbecue trail.