Peg Leg Porker Story

Peg Leg Porker

Oasis

Carey Bringle’s love of barbecue began as a young boy growing up in Nashville. Back when he spent year after year with his grandfather and uncle, learning the art of making great barbecue, he never dreamed he’d one day turn his passion into a business. Bringle, who sharpened his skills and expertise at the world-renowned Memphis in May World Championship of BBQ (he’s competed thirty-one times), eventually opened Peg Leg Porker in 2013. (The restaurant’s name refers to Bringle himself who lost his right leg to bone cancer at the age of seventeen.)

Carey Bringle

Situated in downtown Nashville’s Gulch area, Peg Leg Porker serves West Tennessee barbecue which means pulled pork, smoked chicken, and Bringle’s signature style dry-rubbed ribs. Staying true to tradition, there is no beef on the menu, and the ribs are cooked a specific way.

“We smoke our ribs with hickory smoke, then add our signature barbecue seasoning,” Bringle explains.

“A lot of people will pre-rub a rib and serve it to you with no sauce and call it a dry rib. And that might be a great rib, but it’s not a West Tennessee dry rib. A West Tennessee dry rib has barbecue seasoning that goes on at the end the process.”

His award-winning barbecue (ranked the top barbecue in Tennessee by Southern Living Magazine for five of the past ten years) is served alongside popular sides like barbecue beans, smoked green beans with onion and bacon, creamy shells, and capped off by hot fried pies for dessert.

And Bringle has not only been successful with his barbecue, he also quickly followed it with an award-winning spirit: Peg Leg Porker Tennessee Straight Bourbon Whiskey.

He doesn’t own a distillery but was able to source some quality bourbon and create his own filtering process, tied to his much-loved barbecue brand.

“We found some aged product, and then experimented and tested around on our flavor profile,” Bringle says.

“What I landed on was a hickory charcoal filtering process. We use hickory in our cooking process, so it was natural to use hickory charcoal. Unlike the Lincoln Country process (the usual process for Tennessee whiskey) where you distill it, then run it through sugar maple charcoal before it goes into the barrel, we run it through hickory charcoal as a finishing process before we bottle it.”

It’s given it a signature flavor that pairs perfectly with barbecue and has won the prestigious Gold Medal at the San Francisco World Spirits competition.

Bringle created Peg Leg Porker as a single, family-owned legacy restaurant with no plans to open any others or expand into a chain of Peg Leg Porkers. But he has opened other barbecue restaurants like his Bringle’s Smoking Oasis in the Nations neighborhood of Nashville.

“I wanted this to be completely different and have its own identity from Peg Leg Porker. So, Bringle’s Smoking Oasis is Texas-style. It’s brisket, smoked pastrami, smoked turkey, and salt-and-pepper ribs.”

The menu allows for more creativity, too, in terms of side dishes. Bringle’s is also much bigger than Peg Leg Porker, has outdoor space where people can bring their dogs and children, and includes big screen TVs where people can watch games. 

“It’s cool atmosphere, but totally different than the cinder block and concrete of Peg Leg Porker.”

While Bringle is sole owner of Peg Leg Porker and Bringle’s Smoking Oasis, he’s partnered with others for two additional Nashville-area barbecue restaurants: Fatbelly Pretzel in East Nashville which serves as a bakery and a deli (run by Levon and Kim Wallace), and Pig Star at the Nashville International Airport (operated by Delaware North).

Bringle says he’s happy to share his love and expertise for barbecue in so many ways. (He also wrote the book “BBQ for Dummies.”) And he’s grateful for the success, the friendships, and camaraderie the barbecue world has given him.

“You know, I love it because of the people. Those in the barbecue community who do this for a living are wonderful people, very charitable and very giving. And the people who are barbecue fans, they’re great, too! They come in from all over the country and all over the world, and many have traveled from very far distances specifically to eat at our restaurant. It’s very flattering and humbling, and I want to do a good job for them and make sure they have an amazing experience.”

For more on Peg Leg Porker visit https://peglegporker.com/