Fleur de Lolly: 2025 Alabama BBQ Tour: Pickens County

We traveled to Columbus, Mississippi last weekend to judge BBQ and we stopped in Reform, Alabama for a mid-afternoon lunch.

Reform is located in Pickens County which is located on the west central border of the state. Its county seat is Carrollton which is located in the center of the county.

This area had long been inhabited by Native Americans specifically the Creek tribes. Pickens County was established by the western border of Alabama on December 20, 1820 and was named for Revolutionary war hero General Andrew Pickens. The county is between Tuscaloosa County and the Alabama-Mississippi state line.

Now back to the BBQ!

Upon entering you'll walk straight toward the "window" to order. Boss Hogg himself is setting on the opposite side of the window to take your order.

We placed our order and found an empty table to wait on our food. The dining room is large and the entire time we were waiting/dining, there was a constant stream of customers.

Within minutes, Boss Hogg's brother arrived at the table with our glasses of sweet tea. Unfortunately, the tea had an unusual taste and we requested an alternative. He promptly brought replacement Coke Zeros.

Now on to the meal.

Sweet Harold ordered the rib plate with beans and slaw along with sliced white bread.

The servings were an ample portions.

The ribs were nice and meaty. There was a light smoke aroma and flavor to the ribs. The sauce was unique. Not thick and smoky, not sweet, not thin and vinegar based. It was almost like a thinned out Heinz 57 sauce.

The BBQ beans were a good consistency and included pulled pork, onions, and bell peppers.

The slaw was finely chopped and had a nice fresh crunch.

I chose the pulled pork plate with okra, onion rings, and sliced white bread.

That's a nice looking plate, isn't it?

The pulled pork had absolutely no visible bark. The meat was extremely tender, but no smoke aroma was present. It was almost like the pork had been baked or cooked stovetop.

Very flavorful, just not your typical (and expected) pulled pork which had been cooked on a smoker.

The okra was your typical frozen then fried okra, but it was perfectly cooked. The slices were nice and crunchy, not hard and crumbly.

I always hope the onion rings I order are going to be freshly sliced and battered, then fried. These were the generic frozen onion rings. But they were tasty.

A neighboring table had ordered the fried catfish and when I saw the plates being delivered to their table, I got our table runner's attention. I inquired if a single piece could be ordered. He said that was an option, but I would get more bang for my buck by ordering the snack or basket of catfish. So that's what I did.

You can tell by looking at this picture why I decided we needed to try their catfish. Perfectly seasoned, gently fried to an ideal golden brown, these were so delicious.