Folks, if you haven’t heard, I have great and exciting news from our friends Allegra and C-Dub at C-Dub’s BBQ Rub.  Their Voo Doo BBQ Rub will be the official BBQ Rub of the 2011 Las Vegas Smoke on the Water BBQ Championship!  How big is this news?  Well, Smoke on the Water is giving away a total of $125,000 in prize money to a field of some of the best Professional BBQ Cook Teams in the nation if that gives you a clue.

Here’s the official take on this event from the Smoke on the Water Website:

Considered the world’s richest contest with a guaranteed purse of $125,000, the Kansas City Barbeque Society sanctioned USA Barbecue Champion’s purse of $25,000 is the largest on the competition circuit. We’re also spreading the love by paying top fifteen overall and through fifty places in all four categories.

The USA Barbecue Championship is held at The Orleans Hotel & Casino, right off the bright lights of the famous Las Vegas Strip.

Six figure prize money, 100% certified judges and amenities second to none. Does your team belong?

Allegra contacted me via twitter a few weeks ago and broke the news.  I was stoked, as C-Dub’s BBQ Rub and their Vo0 Doo Rub are some of the best rubs I’ve come across, and are favorites of folks like Brian Meagher over at Hot Sauce Daily, too.  As such, it’s awesome to see good products made by great people getting the PR they deserve!    Once I got her tweet,

I sent over a few questions for her to answer via email.  Here’s a transcript of what she said.

It’s been a while since we’ve talked here on the BBQ Smoker Site. Seem’s you guys have been busy. Can you tell us a bit about your travels of late?

Absolutely, and thanks for offering to share our great news with your readers over at the BBQ Smoker Site! We have been super busy! We went down to North Carolina for a visit, just completed our first BBQ competition cook-0ff, and a couple of days before we left for NC we got a call asking if our VooDoo Rub would like to be a sponsor for the Smoke on the Water Productions 2011 USA Barbeque Championship in Vegas May 20-22 Weekend!  (Editor’s note – um, yeah… that qualifies as both busy and exciting!)

How did the connection between C-Dub’s Rub and Smoke on the Water Productions come about? Did you reach out to them or did they contact you?

They actually contacted us from hearing about our VooDoo Rub. This is something we were not anticipating, but as a small business it was an opportunity we did not want to pass up. It is cool seeing C-Dub’s Logo underneath Budweiser’s! Who knew?

Obviously this event means a lot of increased visibility for the C-Dub’s BBQ Rub product line. Have you guys had any increase in sales since your logo went live on the 2011 Smoke on the Water Las Vegas site? What do you think this event might mean to your business as a whole?

We have seen an increase in sales from areas we have not seen before, increased web traffic, more googling etc. We will have a vending spot down there as well which will open the doors to a market we would not have access to.

Overall brand recognition is a huge goal for us at this event, and we’re ready, baby! We will have Rub samples to give out, and of course –  T-shirts, BBQ Rub and our very popular “Get Naked” Aprons for sale!

Our product is currently being given away as a promotional item for a local radio show as well. This has also has given us some validation to others that we are not a fly by night operation and that we are serious about our business. Overall, inclusion as a sponsor for the 2011 Las Vegas Smoke on the Water BBQ Championship has opened up some doors to opportunities we would not have had otherwise. So, we are anxious and excited about this new venture!

One special treat for us is that while at this event, we’ll get to meet other BBQers that we have chatted with on Facebook and twitter, like the folks over at Whiskey Bent BBQ from your neck of the woods in Lakeland, FL!  We can’t wait to get to meet them, especially as we are also new to this Las Vegas Smoke on the Water cook-off event!