CMT Blog: Archive

To call Aaron Tippin an avid outdoorsman is a bit of an understatement. The singer takes every opportunity he can to hunt just about any game — with one exception. “One day I blasted a squirrel and we ate it, and I realized I wasn’t the biggest squirrel fan, so I don’t squirrel hunt,” says Tippin, whose new album, He Believed, is a tribute to his father. “If I don’t eat it, I don’t shoot it. That’s what my dad taught me.”

“I go deer hunting and pheasant hunting, I love that,” he continues. “And I quail hunt a little bit, although here in Tennessee we don’t have as many wild birds as we used to. Wild turkey is my favorite. I love it. When I’m going to have cholesterol, that’s what I save it up for — a big ol’ plate of wild turkey. It’s turkey season now, so I hunt all I can. I like to hunt in the mornings, but my boys can’t go then, and I’m very adamant about making sure I get to carry them to school, which takes me away from the morning hunts. So we usually go in the afternoons.”

Tippin has become an expert at preparing his favorite game. “We have several recipes we use with wild turkey,” he says. “Probably our favorite is where we grill it. We cut the breast into strips and marinate it in some kind of fajita marinade, and I cook it on the grill. My wife puts it on a big bed of onions and cooks it down, and I make some cool red sauce for it — the secret Aaron Tippin sauce. It’s red wine, red wine vinegar, Worchester sauce, a little bit of lemon juice, a little bit of honey, pepper, cumin and a few other ingredients. I tell you what, it is spectacular!”