Japan’s Professional Bartender’s Organization has announced the PBO Bartender’s Competition 2018 on March 18 over at Kinshicho’s Tobu Hotel Levant Tokyo. This year’s competition is guaranteed to be fierce once again as bartenders from across Japan battle for two different titles:
- The Creation Cup begins at 1PM, focusing young bartenders making cocktails that are creative, though-provoking, technical, and flavorful as possible. The winner of this one will go on to Taiwan’s Golden Cup International Cocktail Competition.
- The MVB Cup begins at 3PM, inviting any licensed PBO Professional Bartender over the age of 25 to challenge existing winners with their knowledge, creativity, technical prowess, and customer service. Five finalists with the highest combined score from the written exam and craft cocktail competition will be judged by their customer service skills at a bar counter, hoping to be named the 2018 PBO Most Valuable Bartender.
After the two competitions, there’s a cocktail party and award ceremony from 6:15PM. The cocktail party will have “a lot” of alcohol–big surprise–with cocktails available from supporting companies, PBO members, previous award winners, PBO Executive Specialists, and the MVB Cup finalists themselves. The hotel is also providing a buffet-style dinner.
If you only want to watch the competitions, tickets are available for 5000 yen at the door. Alternatively if you want to watch the competitions and attend the cocktail party/award ceremony, advance tickets are available for 9000 yen from Ticket Pia, or 12000 yen at the door. So no: there are no tickets for only cocktail party/award ceremony.
This is set to be a pretty boozy Sunday celebrating the best of Japan’s cocktail scene. If you’re interested to see what PBO events are all about, check out my report of last year’s PBO Cocktail & Bar Festa 2017! See you there!
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