Alexander "Butch" Lupinetti, 69, barbecue legend competed nationally for 20 years, racking up more than 600 awards
Hoodoo
Alexander Lupinetti; famed for barbecue
By Claudia Vargas
Inquirer Staff Writer
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/obituaries/20100810_Alexander_Lupinetti__famed_for_barbecue.html
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In 2001, Alexander Lupinetti cooks up corn, crabs, ribs, and beer-can
chicken for 40 friends at an Eagles game tailgate.
[photo #2:]
Alexander Lupinetti prepares ribs before a 2003 competition. He was
scheduled to compete this weekend.
Alexander "Butch" Lupinetti, 69, of Mount Laurel, a South Jersey
barbecue legend who competed nationally for 20 years, racking up more
than 600 awards and beating celebrity chef Bobby Flay in a Food Network
cook-off, died of a massive heart attack Wednesday, Aug. 4, while
vacationing in Pompeii, Italy.
With an Italian father, Mr. Lupinetti grew up on pasta, tomato gravy,
and meatballs. He would help his mother chop and peel vegetables, and
his father prepare fresh meat.
The Lupinetti family lived on a Pemberton farm that raised chickens and
hogs. It was the four boys' job to remove a hog's hair with corncobs
before their father butchered and barbecued it, according to Butch's
Smack Your Lips BBQ Cookbook, which Mr. Lupinetti coauthored in 2009.
"My daddy barbecued; that's just what you did on the farm, honey," Mr.
Lupinetti told an Inquirer reporter in 2003.
As a young man, Mr. Lupinetti pursued singing. In the late 1960s and
early 1970s, he toured with a rock band and opened Butch's Place, a
country-western bar turned rock-and-roll club in Pemberton.
But soon Mr. Lupinetti was roasting pigs out front and working on his
own sauce.
In the late 1980s, he went to his first barbecue competition in Virginia
and hooked up with a barbecue team from Arkansas. His passion took off.
Mr. Lupinetti built a traveling barbecue pit, which included a freezer,
firebox, convection oven, and 10-foot rotisserie oven that could hold
600 pounds of meat. He hit the road with an entourage of helpers,
including relatives and friends.
By 1990, he had launched Butch's Smack Your Lips Barbecue in Mount
Laurel, a wholesale business of his sauces and rubs. Eight years later,
he sold Butch's Place because of his frequent travels.
A full-time competitor, Mr. Lupinetti participated in about two dozen
barbecue contests each year in addition to television appearances,
including a few on the Food Network.
In 2002, he won the New Jersey state barbecue championship, which
qualified him to compete in the 2003 Jack Daniel's World Championship
Invitational Barbecue in Lynchburg, Tenn., considered one of the most
prestigious barbecue competitions.
He won second in the ribs contest and fourth overall, which fueled his
desire for more competition.
"What else am I going to do? Put on one of those red vests and greet
people at Wal-Mart? I don't think so. I love it," he said in a 2003
Inquirer article. "It's America. It really is. It is how things got
started, the cowboys smoking meat and heating it over a fire on the range."
According to his website, Mr. Lupinetti was scheduled to compete in the
Northwest Ohio Rib-Off this coming weekend, followed by other events
across the country.
Mr. Lupinetti, an ironworker by trade, graduated from Rancocas Valley
High School. He held various jobs, including work as a men's
hairdresser, before purchasing the bar that became Butch's Place. He
also owned Alexander's Sunset Inn in Browns Mills for nine years.
Mr. Lupinetti is survived by his wife, Lynne Balag; son Shane and
daughter Alyson; his mother, Edith; and two brothers.
Visitation will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 12, and 9 a.m.
to noon, Friday, Aug. 13, at Perinchief Chapels, 438 High St., Mount
Holly. The funeral and interment will be private.
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