The Democracy team experienced Lynchburg, Tennessee for the first time this weekend at the Jack Daniel’s 21st Annual Invitational BBQ championship, staged in the grounds of the legendary Tennessee whiskey distillery.

16 competition winners from the UK, plus one journalist from The Grocer joined us for the experience. The event (and our client the Jack Daniel’s BBQ Sauces brand) had been promoted across the national press including the Telegraph, Men’s Fitness and the Express, along with supermarket media Asda, Sainsbury’s and Delicious magazine.

The winners (and The Grocer) boarded the plane at Heathrow on Thursday and headed off for a five day whirlwind trip to the USA.

First stop, the Hilton in Nashville and a night of country and western in the many music bars in the city. After crashing out fairly early on (jet lag!) we awoke refreshed for what promised to be a day of exceptional eating . . . .a hearty breakfast, followed by a traditional deep south lunch at Miss Mary Bobo’s boarding house, a tour of the distillery, tasting session and dinner on BBQ Hill.

As the fire crackled and the band played at the VIP event on BBQ Hill, the winners chilled out over a glass of Lynchburg lemonade. Too soon, the evening drew to a close and we started to make our way back on a real America school bus in preparation for the highlight of the trip – the BBQ competition.

Teams from around the world joined state winners from the USA to compete across a series of disciplines – from best Brisket to best dessert. We bumped into the Crispy Critters (the UK competitors) and managed to distract them briefly from the challenges as they talked us through their masterful grill menu.

We tried Boston Butt Bowling, tucked into ribs covered in delicious Jack Daniel’s BBQ sauce and sampled hot apple cider, BBQd corn and even a slice of pie. We had VIP access to the press area, and the competition winners tucked into the finest BBQ food available in the world.

At the end of the day, we sat in the Pavilion to hear which team would scoop the awards – and the British team represented us well. Scooping an impressive red ribbon (second place) in the best international category after serving up an impressive Yorkshire pudding and beef bourguignon with risotto (is that even possible on a grill?!).

All too soon it was time to head back to Nashville for a day of souvenir shopping before boarding the bus, cowboy hats and all, and starting the journey back to the UK.

It was an amazing experience, the winners of the competition were charming, engaging and a pleasure to be with and the team at Jack Daniel’s USA was exceptionally helpful.

From a branding point of view, of course, the event was the finale of a much wider strategy to support retail listings and drive sales of the Jack Daniel’s BBQ Sauce brand in the BBQ sauce category. In total, the campaign reached 83M people and generated 187,645 people entered the competition across the titles to win a place demonstrating how the campaign appealed perfectly to the target consumer.