Gift Guide 2019: Promises, Promises

It's not quite on the market yet.

Still, if you know someone who dreams of becoming a barbecue pitmaster, and you happen to have a few spare thousands on your hands, here's an incredibly cool gift. Your friend could be one of the first people to own one of Aaron Franklin's new backyard smokers.

As everyone who cares about true barbecue knows, Aaron Franklin is the man. People line up at his Austin place for hours just for a taste of his 'cue. (I've done it myself, and yes, it's worth the wait.)

But what if you could achieve that same quality in your very own backyard? Could you do it if you had one of the handmade smokers the Franklin people are working on right now?

Only time will tell.

You don't have to buy one now. In fact, you can't. What you can do is sign up for the newsletter - so you'll be at the head of the line when the new Franklin Smoker is available. In the meantime, just to get ready, you could sign your friend up for Franklin's master class on smoking meat.

Cool tidbit: Aaron told me that his grandfather was one of the original Texas Playboys.