We're all about keeping you up to date with what your favourite local bars are up to, so when we saw that Island Bar were heading up a night of cocktail based antics and punch-pong rivalry, well, we saw that as breaking news of course.
Entrusted with hosting the Birmingham heat of Monin's Underground Punch Pong League, Island Bar looked set to host the fiercest battle between Brummie bartenders yet, kind of. A new event commissioned by the renowned Monin syrup and Plantation Rum, Underground Punch Pong is a regional league that will see bartenders the UK over pip themselves against one another to reign champion. A fruity twist on beer pong, Punch Pong adopts many of the same rules, with the team running out of punch filled cups hailed as the loser.
Teams prep their pyramid formation with a bountiful amount of their freshly made Monin and Plantation Rum punch before Punch Pong battle commences.
Whilst we may not relay the rules back to you (there's genuinely quite a few), we will tell you that Birmingham bartenders came far and wide to compete in last night's punch based frivolities in a bid to be named the duo heading to the finals. While competition was seen to be stiff, it happened to be Island Bar's very own duo that pipped other teams to the post to be named regional heat winners. So where do they go from here? The battle may have been won but the punch pong war is not over as regional winners are set for a final London showdown on the 7th of October at the Covent Garden Cocktail Club.
So there we have it, the UPPL! A sport you may be unfamiliar with but one forcing bartenders the country over to put their pong flex muscles to the test. Good luck to our very own Island Bar duo this October and may the pong be with you!
Celebrating the end of the Birmingham Punch Pong Heat with a hilarious and not so mandatory 'pong-lapse' (a punch pong table collapse for those unfamiliar with the tradition)
