Welcome to Barbecue Nation with JT and Leanne After Hours, the conversation that continued after the show was done.

Hey, everybody, it's JT and this is a special version of Barbecue Nation.

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That's Painted Hills Natural Beef.

Hey, everybody.

Welcome to after hours.

I'm J.T.

along with Leanne.

We've got Jed Laurette with us today from Jack Daniels, and we're all going to be getting together and having a picnic in about two weeks or something like that.

So we start out, Jed, with this.

We always start out with something easy.

Okay, start.

If you could dine with and cook for a historical figure, who would it be and what would be on the menu?

So who would be the historical figure?

It could be someone.

That's an easy one.

You said that's an easy one.

That's what Jeff said.

I think that's one of the hardest ones.

I don't know why he prefaces the.

All right, so let me.

Let me see who historical figure I.

God.

Can we skip.

Can I call.

Yes, yes.

No lifeline, but go ahead.

We'll skip it and you be thinking about it.

Okay, Are y' all going to be dubbing these together?

Are y' all going to make this seem like I knew the answer right off?

Absolutely not.

No, no, no, no, no.

This doesn't work that way, buddy.

Okay, you were in the military, so what is the worst thing you've ever eaten?

Yeah, so I can.

I can answer that one really quickly.

Did multiple trips to Afghanistan, and one of the trips that I was on, we got locked down in our base compound, and all we had was MREs.

Yeah.

I'll be honest with you.

I like the Mac and cheese.

Like the beefy Mac and cheese with the MREs.

I'm not a huge fan of anything that's just beef or just chicken.

It's not beef or chicken in those MREs.

It's a composite, isn't it?

Although I like the beefy Mac and cheese.

I like that.

Yeah, that one's Good, but yeah, MREs, Afghanistan, I never heard.

I've never heard that about those.

I didn't think that they would make them that horrible, but.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Look, it's all about calorie intake.

That's the only thing that we're worried about.

But the flavor is.

We could do better.

So when you were over there, did you get into eating, like, tabouli or hummus or any of that?

Stuff.

I. I love Middle Eastern food.

Okay.

But I loved it beforehand.

My.

My wife and I and the whole family, it doesn't matter what it is.

We're very adventurous with food.

So, yeah, I've had.

Oh, shoot.

All Middle Eastern foods.

So Afghani, obviously.

Saudi Arabian food, which is a little more Mediterranean since they're closer to the meta.

You know, the med.

I like Turkish food, Israeli food.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I like it all.

Matter of fact, my wife made hummus at the house probably two days ago.

I like hummus.

I'm not a big fan of tabouli, but I like hummus.

But when we're.

When we're not on the air and when I see you in person, I will tell you about the first dinner I had in Saudi Arabia and what it comprised of.

Very interesting.

They don't waste any parts of the animal.

I'll just put it that way.

Okay.

Who is somebody that in your life that has really gotten your attention this last year?

Somebody doesn't have to be somebody in the family.

Can be somebody that did something special or really screwed up or whatever.

Whatever your parameters are.

Does it have to be a person or can it be a group of people?

It can be a group.

I don't care.

Okay.

So I was asked to go up to Sturgis to do a.

We do what's called Operation Ride Home.

And Operation Ride Home is Jack Daniels in the ymca.

We sponsor Junior Enlisted to get home safely.

Because some of them, like I was Junior Enlisted, we just didn't have any money to get back to the house.

Right.

Whether it be Christmas, somebody's getting married, somebody's having a baby.

Sadly, somebody passed away, and you just don't have the money.

So we went out to Sturgis like we always do.

We helped raise money, but I got to be a part of a few auctions, and in three days, I saw half a million dollars get raised for Special Olympics, battered women and children.

EMTs, first responders.

That group of people that I got to see out there, raise money for complete strangers was absolutely beautiful.

And that happened just about a month and a half ago.

Cool.

Beautiful.

Would you recommend a career like yours, with everything you've done, you know, to somebody that's just kind of starting out?

No.

Absolutely not.

I don't think anybody should come from my job.

Okay, you can just go do something else.

No, it's fun.

Like, seriously, you have to be willing to.

You've got to be real with people.

Because I think ultimately, I think we can.

We can tell when somebody's fake or it's a put on, but be genuine.

If you're going to go to college for something like this, you've got to love people.

You've really got to care for people.

Okay.

Yeah, absolutely.

Let's do it.

What was the absolute best day in your life so far?

In my life.

Yeah.

Well, obviously if my wife hears this, it definitely needs to be when I got married.

Good man, Good man.

Good man.

Here recently.

It's very proud of my oldest daughter who just got married.

But yeah, probably.

Probably when we had our kids and when I got married.

Sure, absolutely.

Best.

Okay.

So if you, Jed, could erase a mistake from history.

Doesn't have to be your own.

Can be history of the world.

But if you could erase a mistake from history, what would it be and why?

How about this?

I would.

I would erase no mistakes.

All right?

And I know, you know, when you think about all the terrible things that have happened in the world, even within those terrible things, I think humanity, hopefully we've learned from those mistakes.

Without that mistake, we're bound to.

To do it anyways.

At least that's how I see it.

So, yeah, I would say that even within the torture angu sad moments in life, I think we've learned from it and hopefully we've grown from it because God knows I.

It's hard.

It's hard, but it is.

We've learned lessons from it.

So I don't.

I don't know if I would.

I know that sounds like an awful answer.

No, it actually makes a lot of sense to me.

It does make sense.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're good.

You're good.

What's your absolute favorite non barbecue food or dish?

My wife made it last night.

Shepherd's pie.

Oh, yeah.

All right, so we.

We use lamb.

All right.

And we get Irish cheddar.

It's the whole thing.

It's.

It's one of my favorites.

Cool.

Sweet.

It's probably.

All right, you know what?

Let me take that back.

It's definitely that.

But growing up, I was one of three.

Well, it was.

I'm the middle child.

Not that y' all can tell that I'm a kid.

Start for attention.

Nobody loves me.

All right, got it.

You're my sister.

Yeah.

We grew up really, really poor.

And my favorite thing that my mom made was wiener spaghetti.

All right.

It is the cheapest hot dogs you can find.

And she made her own tomato sauce.

And I know it sounds disgustingly.

Don't make.

You gonna make this the World Food Championships Leanne or what?

That's right.

Leanne, I promise you, if.

If you had it, you would.

You would think twice.

I'm not saying it's gourmet, but there's something intrinsically special about the dish because it was something that my mom made.

Yeah.

And, yeah, I would say that is my favorite fragrance.

Y' all are learning way too much about me.

No, this is.

So you said it's called what now?

It's just Wiener Spaghetti.

It's a wiener spaghetti.

So did she cut the hot dogs into little spaghetti or a little round?

No, no.

So it's regular, like spaghetti sauce with noodles.

And she always.

Look, we're.

I'm Cajun by descent, so we're all from Louisiana, South Louisiana.

And so it was always the trinity.

We always had peppers and onions.

And it.

That was her base for everything.

It didn't matter what it was.

I went to school smelling like onions.

Because mom was cooking supper at six o' clock in the morning.

But.

Yeah, so she would cut the little hot dog, like the hot dog into little rounds and then she cook it in a sauce.

And I know it sounds disgusting.

I'm not trying to sell you, but it was.

It was good.

You know, it's.

It's.

It's not all that bad.

I guess it's kind of like spaghetti and meatballs.

But you're swapping out the meatballs for that.

I was thinking that she cut those hot dogs into little skinny spaghetti, and that was like the spaghetti itself.

That's why I was having trouble.

It's like.

I mean, people smoke baloney all the time, right?

Okay, all right, all right, all right.

Moving on.

What was the first thing you ever got in trouble for as a kid?

Do you remember?

I don't.

I can tell you the one thing I know that I got in trouble for unprovoked.

I knocked my little brother out with a pull queue.

Wow.

Yeah.

Don't judge me, Leanne.

He asked a question.

Yeah, I don't.

If I had known about the pool cue thing as far as my sister's related.

See, so.

But I didn't know about it.

I got my sister.

Dad.

But anyway.

Okay, yeah, Leanne's probably old enough.

I'm not sure if you are, Jed, but Mattel used to make this fake little Winchester rifles and they had little spring loaded bullets.

Okay.

So you can hopefully find them and put them back in the cartridge that was spring loaded and you could shoot them again.

Right.

This is all an indoor activity.

So my bedroom was above.

Directly above my sister's.

And it was an Open stairwell.

So I used to lay on the top of the stairwell one while she worked nights when she got out of high school.

And I would lay up there and while she was trying to get to sleep, I would shoot her with my Mattel.

But then I only had three bullets, so I'd have to sneak, try to sneak down the stairs and find the damn bullets.

And I could never find them and I'd get caught and I'd get in trouble anyway.

So how long would you lay in wait?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Did you have a gilly suit?

I mean.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was an orange and brown carpet.

So with my hair, when I had red hair, it didn't blended right in, trust me.

But crawling down those stairs on your hand on your belly to try to be real quiet.

And of course if I had friends staying over for the weekend, they'd start laughing and stuff and then I just got in trouble.

Anyway, if.

Here, let's do something fun here.

If you were declared supreme ruler of barbecue for a week, what would you decree?

That I get to judge a competition.

There you go.

There you go.

I've never judged.

I've been begging Debbie around here to let me judge.

It's fine.

Debbie, if you're listening, I just called you out.

Wow.

I'll put a call.

You know What?

For your 10 year anniversary.

I think she should do that for you.

That would be sweet of her.

That would be a very nice gift.

Yeah.

If, if you were an animal, Jed, what animal would you be and why?

What kind of animal would I be?

I'd be a turtle.

I'd be a turtle.

Turtles, yeah.

Because that's what my grandfather nicknamed me when I was little because I would stick my head out of the play pen.

Histine was coming.

That's the first thing that popped into my head.

So that's probably the most true.

Okay.

Yeah.

What is something that you know your spouse was right about was correct but you still think she's wrong?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Yeah.

Nothing at all.

Ah, okay.

Just in case, just in case she's listening.

You're going to live a long and prosperous life there, Jed.

I pray.

I pray.

Yeah, yeah.

What, what do you think is the hard, absolute hardest thing you ever did?

Was the hardest thing ever did?

Was it boot camp or was it.

No, boot camp was hard.

I was already married, I already had a child.

I was a little older when I went into the military.

I was 21, about to turn 22.

Not that that's old, but it normally it's like 18 when you get out of high school, but it was.

It was leaving for my deployments to Afghanistan after I was out of the military.

I had three years where I missed everybody's birthday, all the Christmases, all the anniversaries, and that.

That was the hardest part.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can't make up for it.

It's gone.

Yeah, yeah.

Would you describe yourself as corn fed or grass fed?

I'm a hybrid.

Because.

Okay, maybe.

Maybe I will start.

I would start it, like, on grass, but I'm finished on grain.

Yeah, there you go.

That's.

That's actually the right answer.

So that's a good answer.

What's the first thing you do when you get up in the morning?

You want the real answer?

Yep.

Yep.

So I go in the living room and I put my glasses on because I'm 45 years old and apparently my eyes stop working, and I read my Bible for about 15 minutes, and I go and take a shower.

There you go.

Awesome.

There you go.

I think Tina Cannon is the one that gave us the most.

The most correct.

The most.

Yeah, yeah.

People forget.

I mean, most people get up and they go to the bathroom.

Yeah.

And she said, what do you mean, after I go pee?

Yeah.

Oh, there you go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I've already gotten up four times in the middle of the night to do that.

Yeah, I get that deal, too.

What's your favorite movie?

And I always use this as an example.

Mine is Casablanca.

Oh, okay.

So it's kind of similar to that.

Mine really is.

It's the original Willy Wonka in the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder.

Yeah.

So funny you should say that.

I think they have a.

At least according to my sister.

She's a food stylist, and she is doing IHOP purple pancakes and, like, a print shot.

And they're.

They're doing a remake of Willy Wonka and something.

I don't know what kind of movie it is, but I don't know if it's a reboot.

I got it.

IHOP is making, like, crazy food to celebrate this.

So you got.

I don't know what it's about.

At least that movie.

They just need to let it be Gene Wilder.

Yeah.

He killed it ever.

But it's very similar to Casablanca.

I mean, when.

When you said it, I thought Willy Wonka.

Yes.

Yeah, I get that.

What's one.

We only got a couple more here, Jed, and we won't keep you.

What's one thing you miss about your time in, you know, school or college?

Meaning when you're young?

I Guess the lack of responsibility.

I.

Enjoy obviously, being my age and having kids that were my age.

When I'm thinking about this.

Yeah, it was.

It was just fun.

There was nobody you're responsible for.

I don't know.

Just.

Okay.

It's less stress.

Less.

Yeah.

Less stress is absolutely the word.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, back to the question you passed on.

Oh, God.

The historical figure.

Who would it be and what would be on the menu?

Let's go with this is so hard.

Why in the world.

It can be a musician, it can be a politician, it can be any good.

Because when you said historical figure, I'm thinking like Abe Lincoln.

Yeah, yeah.

No, you can.

It can be anyone in history.

So when you said musician, that was the one thing that.

I don't have an answer for it.

I just.

Okay.

God.

When we.

When we come to see you at the Jack, we expect an answer.

Okay.

I'm literally writing it down right now.

Okay.

Or you can listen to this and then I'll remind you.

All right, last question.

If you're on.

If you were on death row, what would your last meal be?

And now it can't be shepherd's pie because you already used it.

All right?

It won't be shepherd's pie.

It would be pho.

Have you had pho?

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

What?

Hold on.

Leanne, you've never.

What did you just say?

How do you spell it?

It's P, H, O. Yeah.

Or is it.

Oh, no, it's P, H. Okay.

Oh, is it noodles?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think it's, like, in broth.

It's Vietnamese.

Is it like noodles and.

And like, brothy kind of stuff?

Look, it's so much more than that, Leanne.

Yeah, it's so much more than that.

Do y' all have pho, jt?

Oh, yeah.

All right, then you're gonna.

Look, you need to culture her and.

Okay.

All right, let me.

Let me tell you something, Jed.

I had my knee replaced last December, and I did it at kind of a semi private clinic.

And when we got done, they said, I. I came to, and they're talking to me and all that, and, you know, how's it feeling?

Your legs all wrapped up and stuff?

They said, well, before you go home, we got to make sure you eat something and, you know, you stand up and all that.

Okay.

They said we got a couple choices for lunch.

And I thought it was going to be like, okay, lemon jello or cherry jello or something like that.

No, but it was faux.

They catered it.

No, they cater the lunches there.

So you come in and they gave me the bowl of this, and they said, what do you want to drink?

And again, I'm thinking like, oh, God, they've got apple juice or diet water or something.

I said, I'd like a Pepsi.

Okay.

And they brought it in there, and my wife is looking at me, and they.

They fed her, too.

And.

And it's just like.

It's like, cool.

I'll get the other one done because I'm hungry, you know?

Yeah.

So, Leanne, we're gonna have to make sure you get some.

Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna.

Do they have it in Lynchburg?

I don't think so.

Hold on.

Did she.

Was she about to say, I'm not gonna it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Forever.

Forever.

We.

We have some.

We have some.

Some Vietnamese and Thai restaurants around here that we can.

We'll set her up before she comes down to Tennessee.

Jed, thank you.

You've been a great sport.

We look forward to seeing you.

And I'll send you the links later this week when the show's ready to go and you can share them and do all that.

Okay, buddy?

Hey, and send me.

Send me that book, the Black Barbecue.

Oh, yeah, I'll get you the title to that.

Yes.

Are you talking about Black Smoke from Adrian Miller?

No, the other one, Joe.

It was in Joe's book.

Oh, I don't know the title of that one offhand.

Yeah, it was like barbecue spelled out right.

Confused because.

Yeah, okay.

The way the title was off to look at it.

But we'll get it for you.

Yeah, we'll make sure you figure out which one it is.

All right.

Well, I'm glad I was a repeat offender.

You are welcome anytime on this show, buddy.

Anytime.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

For Jed and Leanne and myself, thank you for listening and sharing your time with us.

We will be back next week with another edition of After Hours.

Until then, remember our motto.

As we always say, turn it, don't burn it.

Take care, everybody.