Smoked Chicken Drumsticks

This past weekend I went to the Rock N’ Ribfest in Merrimack, NH for the Great American Cookout Tour, where McCormick is the Official Seasoning and Marinade Partner.  The whole event was a really fun time and I was able to consume tons of BBQ and beer.  I also met Mike Peters, President of the Kansas City Barbeque Society and host of the Great American Cookout Tour, and he talked to me about some grilling and smoking tips to use at home.  I was so excited after attending this event to smoke some meat at home.  It has been about 5 years since I have attempted to smoke any meat on the grill, and it is about time I got back into the game!

The Great American Cookout Tour was handing out some awesome samples of burgers and chicken seasoned with McCormick Grill Mates.  I also got to take home a few samples of the spice blends, like Montreal Steak, which is my old favorite.

Mike was on stage cooking and talking pretty much all day, and had some great tips for grilling and smoking meat.  He talked a lot about the reverse sear method of cooking meat, which is a trend from McCormick’s Grilling Flavor Forecast where you bring the meat to temperature over a low, indirect heat, and then sear the outside at the very end for a nice char.

 

After the cooking demo, I wandered around and sampled as much BBQ as possible, thinking about what I wanted to smoke when I got home.

As I said earlier, when I got home I was really excited to do some smoking of my own! I bought some hickory wood chips and started soaking them.

I gave some chicken drumsticks a nice coating in McCormick Grill Mates Chipotle & Roasted Garlic.

I have a new grill where you can put the wood chips right on the grate and it produced lots and lots of smoke!

I took Mike’s advice about the reverse sear and popped these onto the grill on indirect heat for 2 hours to add a little more dimension of flavor. At the end, I finished them with a quick sear to crisp up the skin a little.

The chicken came out with a super smoky flavor and after such an easy success with these I won’t be waiting another 5 years to smoke meat again that’s for sure.

That little kick and sweetness from the Chipotle & Roasted Garlic seasoning went a long way.

And they were still juicy on the inside!