‘Krunk BBQ’

Hot Springs native part of culinary society

Dr. Randy Hill owns eight grills, has won numerous trophies, and has been on television four years in a row, all because of a decision he made to join a barbecue cooking competition more than 10 years ago.

The family practice doctor turns into a barbecue cook in his spare time and said he picked up the hobby by entering a local cook-off out of the blue.

“It's one of those things that kind of gets in your head,” Hill said. “That's what makes it fun. If I came in first every single time I cooked I'd quit doing it, because then it's not fun anymore. You've kind of conquered it.”

That initial contest led to bigger competitions, the first of which was in Little Rock while he still cooked alone. Hill used to say he never had to drive more than five miles to cook but before he knew it, his food took him to Kansas for other competitions. He then partnered with Andy Allen to cut down on expenses and from there, Southern Krunk BBQ Society was born.

Hill specifically created a society to encourage anybody to join and allow the group to be inclusive. As to the definition of Southern Krunk, Hill noted, “If you gotta ask what krunk means you ain't never gonna understand what krunk means.”

The society provides an outlet for cooks to show off their skills with chicken, brisket, ribs and pork across various competitions. “If you can cook it, we'll enter it,” Hill said. Southern Krunk has entered three of the four bigger competitions in the nation, including Memphis in May, American Royal and Jack Daniel's World Championship, which they won in 2013 in the ribs category. Competing with barbecue can prove to be difficult, however, and Hill said it comes down to everybody's different tastes. “Barbecue is a fickle beast,” he said. That fickle beast led them to the inaugural Chicago Windy City Rib Cookoff in 2012, and Southern Krunk was met with slight opposition before the contest even started.

“There was a critic up there that wrote we didn't know what the hell we were doing,” Hill said.

The critic ended up judging Southern Krunk's entry and quickly backtracked, saying the group did know what it was doing. In fact, Hill said the judge issued an apology on the Internet, one well deserved as Southern Krunk was the only team not from Chicago in the competition.

Hill has also traveled across the nation from Oklahoma to Maryland to have his barbecue judged on appearance, tenderness and taste. It is an art that within the past four years gave Hill the opportunity to participate in various cooking shows, including “Cutthroat Kitchen” this year and “Pit Masters” in 2011, which was only the second time Hill and Allen cooked together.

The barbecuing, grilling and numerous contests have earned Southern Krunk numerous trophies that Hill said he makes Allen keep.

“It's not about trophies. It's more about life experiences,” Hill said. “That's what you bring home from these things.”

Hill plans to keep it about those experiences while still enjoying his job as a doctor. He said opening his own restaurant wasn't a plan because he signed on to be a doctor and loved his day job. Turning to his cooking full-time would keep it from being a hobby, he said. For the time being, Southern Krunk aims to represent Hot Springs in the cooking world.

“We've got a lot of good cooks in Hot Springs,” Hill said. “We take a lot of pride in our community.”

He added barbecue is something he thinks everybody should try even if they are intimidated by it at first. Food, he said, doesn't have to be very complicated.

“Really good food is sometimes the simplest,” he said.

Randy Hill shows off a brisket cooked on one of his many grills at his home.