12 bars. 12 challenges. 66 ways to lose your dignity. One birthday nobody will remember correctly.
One night. 12 bars through Montreal's Golden Square Mile, from Cloakroom Bar to the finale at 3 Brasseurs Crescent / Ste-Catherine. Your phone is your controller, your witness, and your lawyer. It shows where we are, where we're going, what you have to do at every bar, who's winning, and what the Wheel of Doom decided to do with you.
You cannot leave the group chat. You cannot leave the country. You can leave the bar, but only when the app says so.
Every bar has one challenge, and none of them happen at our table: uncle advice for a stranger, a Dacia sold to someone at the bar, a wedding toast for a table you have never met, a real call to your actual mother, a conspiracy theory explained to the bartender. Everyone performs. Nobody is excused. Being shy is not a medical condition.
When the host opens voting, you vote on your phone for the best performance. Not yourself. We check. The host records the winner and the loser, and the loser's problems begin.
Lose a challenge and the host spins the wheel on every phone at once. It lands on one of 66 punishments, every one of them a real action: negotiate a free beer from the bartender, call your mother, show the table your last five transactions, ten push-ups counted in Romanian, buy the winner a drink, text the cousin in Germany a flex he didn't ask for.
Your punishment is due at the next bar. The wheel shows all of them; the ones already served are greyed out and nothing repeats tonight. Staff get one polite ask, strangers get one polite ask, and if the venue is slammed the host rerolls to a group-only one. No penalty, no drama, we are guests here.
Some punishments involve drinking. Don't want to? Say so and the wheel spins again. No penalty, no questions, no looks. Anyone can add a punishment or sharpen an existing one from the Doom tab; your name goes in the log forever.
Fines: the host decides before the night. With the ANAF tax on, a failed punishment costs a dollar or two into the pot, and the pot buys the finale round. With it off, fines are squats, push-ups at the table, fetching the next round, carrying the coats, or buying the winner a drink. Either way, nobody goes broke.
House rule: everything stays at our table, at normal volume. Commit completely, bother nobody. The bar did not consent to us.
The app shows the full trajectory: planned arrival and leave times, walking minutes between bars, and whether we're ahead or behind schedule. About 25 minutes per bar, 90 at the finale. Nobody gets rushed, but when the timekeeper says hai ca plecam, that was the third warning.
At the stop before the finale, nominations open: Combinatorul, Primarul Satului, Unchiul Roman, Patronul, Diplomatul Balcanic, Cetatean de Onoare, Dealerul National, Revenirea Anului. Each nomination needs a written reason, and the reasons get read out loud, so write carefully or write recklessly, but write.
The highest score is crowned Regele Serii. The lowest becomes Rusinea Familiei. And Betivu' din Sat goes to whoever blows the highest number on the breathalyzer at the finale. The machine does not take bribes. We tried.
The finale is a shared 5 L Triton for the whole table at 3 Brasseurs Crescent / Ste-Catherine. Everyone says Noroc together. There is no individual quota, food and water are encouraged, and the group can end it together whenever it wants. Then the awards, the breathalyzer, and the long walk home that someone will narrate.