My name is Rocky Richmond and I live in the mountains of western North Carolina. I love everything about barbecue, especially eating and cooking it. Back in the late '70's and early '80's, I worked at a couple different BBQ joints and became familiar with the business. I started getting serious about barbecue in 1998 after buying a nice electric smoker. Then I added a couple bullet-type water smokers and a nice offset BBQ pit to the lineup. After enjoying that backyard offset pit for a couple years, I sold it and bought a huge mobile offset pit.

I built my first Big Drum Smoker back in 2001. After 3 years and 15 prototypes, the BDS design was perfected and ready for the public to enjoy. The first thing I noticed with the BDS was that the meat tasted different than the meat smoked in my other BBQ pits. That wonderful old-time traditional flavor was very evident in meat smoked directly over the coals with no water pan. The meat from my other smokers was great, but the BDS produces a unique taste you will never forget. My family and friends all agreed that the BDS was a very special cooker. That gave me the motivation to keep making improvements.