Just up the road from Tellico Village near Madisonville, Allan Benton has been smoking whole hams and other pork delicacies for roughly 50 years.

Benton’s Smoky Mountain Country Hams have a reputation among chefs at some of the finest restaurants from New York to San Francisco. Customers also drive from all over East Tennessee and even further to shop in the modest wood-framed building on Highway 411 just a couple miles south of Vonore.

When you enter the store, you can hear the wood floorboards creaking and smell the smoking process, which is under way using a hickory fire pit in the back of the building.


Visible from the counter are wood racks in the back of the building hanging with whole hams, sides of ribs and bacon slowly aging to perfection.

Allan Benton and his father B.D. started smoking hams in 1973 using a process perfected by family friend Albert Hicks in 1947. The slow-curing process, which includes salt, brown sugar and sodium nitrate, is based on recipes used for many years in the Appalachian region.

“We’ve been doing things pretty much the same way all these years,” Benton said.

The recipe is rubbed into the hams before aging for at least 9 months — sometimes more than a year — and smoking in the wood-fired smokehouse on the premises. Various techniques based on the same process are used to produce bacon, prosciutto and fresh or smoked sausage.

The result of the slow process is a unique flavor and smell that can fill a kitchen and even a whole house. Many chefs use small pieces of the smoked hams just to add flavor to dishes.

Benton said although he doesn’t ship outside the country, he hears from people who have seen his products on menus in Europe and other countries.

“I don’t know how they get it, but I hear all the time from people who say they are serving it in France,” he said.

At 75, Benton said he has no intention of slowing down or even considering retirement.

“We’re staying busy and I like that,” he said.

Dawn and David Garrett have been buying ham, sausage and bacon from Benton’s for more than 25 years. They said they used to travel from Atlanta on weekends to visit friends in Tellico Village.

“We heard about this place and we’ve been coming here ever since when we’re in the area,” David said.

Manager Tommy Bateman said business has been strong this year following some changes during the pandemic. He said business at the store had slowed but online orders went to previously uncharted levels.

“A lot of people stayed home so we started shipping to a lot more homes during 2020,” Bateman said.