The turkey breast at Franklin Barbecue was amazing. (Photo by Tom Fox/DMN)

On Posse tours, we've noticed that more joints are adding smoked turkey breast to their menus, so we added it to our standard order during our recent Best of Austin barbecue tour.

Brisket, pork ribs, sausage... and turkey. The holy trinity -- plus one -- of Texas barbecue.

All four places we visited had turkey. Mainly, it was good.

The best we had was at Franklin Barbecue. It was worth the wait in line just to see the meat cutter take the turkey breast from its butter bath, slice several pieces, slosh them in the butter and then flip them on scale.

Yes, they are weighing -- and charging for -- the butter drench.  But it was worth it.

"The turkey is deadly," Posse veteran Bruce Tomaso said.

From our eight Posse voters, Franklin's turkey received three scores of perfect 10.

One Posse member, R.J. Hinkle, didn't realize how much he appreciated it until he had the turkey at La Barbecue, our next stop.

"It could have been the butter bath, but the last one was really good," he said.

We also had turkey at John Mueller Meat Co. and Stiles Switch BBQ and Brew. An all-time Posse favorite still remains the turkey at Stanley's in Tyler.

We're not yet ready to put turkey in the same elevated company as brisket, ribs and sausage. But we will keep ordering it.


Aloha Phil

12 years ago

Nice to see you guys tasting and writing about the smoked turkey at bbq joints!...While not authentic 'cue, it's gaining in popularity, they're paying more attention to it, and doing some great things with fowl...

Agree with your review of Franklin's turkey...In Lockhart, Kreuz Market and Black's BBQ are also making some excellent smoked turkey...




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