Underground Herbal Spirit Wins 2014 Booze Brackets

OGDEN, UT, April 20, 2014 (Press-News.org) The several week event, sponsored by BourbonBlog.com, puts liquor brands head-to-head in a 64-brand NCAA basketball tournament style bracket. The fans of each brand vote and brands receiving the most votes move on to the next round.

"We entered both Underground Herbal Spirits and Five Wives Vodka," explained Steve Conlin, managing partner of Ogden's Own. "Both brands made it to the Final Four and had to face each other with Underground moving on to the final."

"While Utah may have the lowest per capita of drinkers, when it comes to passion for local brands, Utah is definitely number one," Conlin said.

The competition features some very well known brands such as Jack Daniels, Ole Smokey Tennessee Moonshine, Wild Turkey and Jim Beam.

"Given that people could vote multiple times, it really was about how engaged your fans were willing to be," explained Conlin. "We came back from being several thousand votes down in most rounds. Some of these companies have 100's of thousands of Facebook friends. We have a little over 5,000. The support was nothing short of amazing."

In the final match up Underground Herbal Spirit matched up against Angels Envy Bourbon Whisky from Louisville, KY. "They were tough," said Conlin. "We thought we'd put them away early Saturday evening, but they came back and took the lead with a pace of votes we didn't think we could keep up with."

Eventually Angels Envy faded, and Underground took the final tally with 31,121 votes to 24,358.

"Our families and friends really put the hammer down the last hours!" Conlin said. "More than 15,000 votes were in the last couple of hours."

To celebrate with all those who took time out of their schedules to vote, Ogden's Own will be throwing a celebration at Brewskis, 244 Historic 25th, Ogden, UT on April 19th, 7-9pm. featuring food and prizes.