Americans love their barbecue, but perhaps nowhere in the United States are their pants more smeared with BBQ-stained fingerprints than Alabama, our country's most 'cue-crazed state.
According to the real estate analysts at Estately, the Heart of Dixie leads the nation in its percentage of barbecue restaurants (8.27 percent) and Facebook interest in barbecue. 'Bama also ranked high in number of BBQ restaurants per capita (coming in 3rd); Google searches for the term "barbecue" (5th); and the number of barbecue accessory outlets within its borders (8th).
Once the rankings in each category were averaged and the (possibly hickory-flavored) smoke cleared, Alabama emerged as America's most passionate purveyor of ribs, chicken, and brisket — by a respectable margin, too. The states of Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Missouri rounded out the top five, though none besides Oklahoma and Texas could claim to rank first in any category:
Conversely, Estately named Connecticut the least "enthusiastic" state when it comes to barbecue, scoring it dead last in terms of restaurants per capita, and second to last in terms of percentage of overall eateries. "There are seven times more [doughnut] shops in Connecticut than barbecue joints," they note. "Seven."
The takeaway? Visit Connecticut if you've got a hankering for doughnuts, but make a beeline for Alabama if you're craving mountains of expertly grilled meat. (Or opening a Wet-Nap factory. A pair of pants can only absorb so much.)
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