You wouldn’t think that a barbecue sauce created by a retired Caterpillar executive in Chillicothe would have a ghost of a chance of winning any sort of national recognition. But that’s exactly what happened when Chillicothe entrepreneur and local BBQ legend Paul Buob entered his Smoking Ghost Haunted Heat Barbeque Sauce in this year’s American Royal World Series of BBQ Sauce. It brought home first place in the Specialty Sauce category and just barely missed being named Best Sauce on the Planet.

To say that Buob was excited is an understatement. “It’s hard to dream something like this,” he says. “You want to be competitive, you want to be good, but to win it is just insane.”

Insane or not, the win puts an exclamation point on a flavorful journey that started nearly 20 years ago with some ill-fitting soccer uniforms. When Buob — a concerned parent of kids at IVC High School — went to the Boosters to get funds for new shorts for the boys’ soccer squad, they agreed to a barter deal: new uniforms would be purchased if he and his wife, Sarah, would work the Boosters’ concessions at IVC sports events.

That inauspicious deal was soon to grow beyond anyone’s imaginings. After streamlining operations and maximizing profits on pork chop sandwiches, Buob started cooking pulled pork for sale at games. It went over well. So well that one of the other parents suggested that his pork was good enough to win competitions.

“That’s when it started,” he says. “Someone said, ‘You should go compete with this,’ and I said, ‘Compete in what?’”

It wasn’t long before he became immersed in the world of competitive BBQ. He needed a name for his team and thought Chilli Pits (for Chillicothe Pit BBQ) was perfect. Then, good friend Kenny Steiger suggested Smoking Ghosts, a nod to IVC’s sports mascot. The name stuck.

That first competition was not a rousing success, but he pushed on, attending the National BBQ Association’s national meeting in 2017. There, he met Dave Raymond of Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ fame and Dave Anderson, namesake of Famous Dave’s restaurants. They suggested that he develop his own line of BBQ rubs — those flavorful seasonings applied to meats before smoking low and slow.

“I told them I wasn’t interested, I just wanted to cook good BBQ,” he recalls.

Eventually, he came around to the idea of a special rub for beef brisket, and with insight of a spice shop owner in Lake Geneva, Wisc., discovered the special flavor properties of white pepper. It became his “secret” ingredient.

Over the course of about three months, Excalibur Seasonings in Pekin worked with Buob to develop the final formulation for what is now his All Purpose Rub. Owens Design Group in Chillicothe designed the now-familiar logo and label, and Chillicothe’s Picket Fence was his very first customer. Word got out and specialty meat markets like Alwans, Pottstown Deli, and Raber’s Packing started carrying the rub.

By 2019, Kroger stores picked up Smoking Ghost All Purpose Rub, but problems with a distributor meant that relationship did not last. Today, Buob’s products are in nearly 250 small retailers across the Midwest, Hy Vee stores, Ace Hardware, and a few outlets to the west.

The Smoking Ghost product line now includes the original rub and Next Level Rub, which the creator says has “a little more zip” than the original but is still a very versatile all-purpose product. Retired after 35 years with Caterpillar, Buob still visits stores, fills orders, and manages most other aspects of his business.

“It’s not a crazy big burden, but it can get challenging,” he admits. He has entered more than 170 BBQ competitions since 2016, winning more than 30 first places in categories for chicken, ribs, pork, and brisket. His BBQ products have earned seven Grand Champion Awards from the National BBQ Association. 

Smoking Ghost Spooky Sweet BBQ Sauce was introduced to appreciative customers in 2021, followed shortly after by Haunted Heat. That was the winning recipe that brought home the goods from the American Royal competition, beating out more than 80 entries in the Specialty Sauce category and more than 480 entries overall. 

“There were two perfect scores in that competition, we were one of them,” Buob says with both pride and disbelief. He adds that the other sauce, Spooky Sweet, placed sixth overall, which is also a very respectable showing.

There have been other recognitions for these homegrown products, including best label design from the National BBQ Association, and a third-place prize in the International Flavor Awards.

“I like to be humble, but when it comes to the products, you have to boost them. You have to convince people you’re the best sauce out there,” he says. “If you win and nobody knows, does that help you? No. You have to leverage that moment of fame.”

Buob often looks back at the beginnings of his business in the concession stand at IVC High School. He knows that it all started because he and his wife volunteered to help an organization that was helping his kids.

“By volunteering, I gained something I didn’t even know I had or would want. All of the opportunities are really the result of volunteering,” Buob says. “Everybody thinks that when you volunteer you are giving something to people, and you are, but for me, what I got back was much more.”

Buob was born and raised in Peoria, but he has called Chillicothe home for most of his married life. He gives a great deal of credit to his original BBQ team and the concession parents for all they did to help him build a successful business.

“This is really as much a Chillicothe award as it is mine,” he says of his American Royal win. “We wouldn’t be here today if we hadn’t started working at the concessions.”

To discover retailers and learn more about Smoking Ghost products, visit www.smokinghostbbq.com.