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Drinking Games
Drinking games and alcohol have one thing in common: no one really knows who came up with them first. But apparently, not long after humans figured out how to make alcohol, somebody looked at the person next to them and thought, You know what would make this more interesting? Rules.
Archaeologists and historians have found frescoes, paintings, scrolls, drinking vessels, and other evidence showing that games have been part of drinking culture for thousands of years.
Ancient Chinese drinking games are known as Jiuling. Depending on the game, players might use dice, riddles, gestures, body parts, poetry, or other challenges to determine who drank. The tradition became so elaborate that Ma Guojun wrote a roughly 400-page book about Jiuling titled Zhōngguó Jiǔlìng Dàguān. Four hundred pages of drinking games.
Around 500 BCE, the ancient Greeks played a particularly messy drinking game called Kottabos. Players flung the remaining wine from their kylix—a shallow drinking cup—at a target. Basically, ancient Greek drinking culture included throwing your leftover wine across the room on purpose. Somewhere, a barkeeper was already regretting choosing this career.
In 1982, researchers in China's Jiangsu Province unearthed an elaborate Tang Dynasty drinking-game vessel. It featured a tortoise-shaped pedestal and fifty gilded silver counters. The counters contained quotations from The Analects of Confucius along with instructions that could require someone to drink, persuade another person to drink, receive a penalty, or be excused. So yes, people were combining Confucius and drinking games more than a thousand years ago. “He who loses must drink” probably didn't make it into the fortune cookies.
In England, King Edgar the Peaceful tried to curb excessive drinking by having pegs placed inside communal drinking vessels. Drinkers were supposed to stop when the liquid reached the next peg. Human beings, being human beings, apparently looked at the king's sensible drinking limit and turned it into a challenge. The pegs became associated with drinking contests instead.
Nice try, Edgar.
From roughly the 1300s onward, Europeans also amused themselves with puzzle jugs—ceramic drinking vessels covered with holes and hidden channels. The challenge was to figure out how to drink from the jug without spilling its contents all over yourself. Some even carried taunting verses challenging the drinker to figure them out.
Choose the correct opening and you got a drink.
Choose the wrong one and you wore it.
In other words, the medieval version of a drinking game came with its own built-in wet T-shirt contest.
Greeks playing Kottabos/ Photo by Xocolati / Creative Commons License
Seven Modern Drinking Games
Today, animal horns, silver goblets, and oxen knucklebones have been replaced by red plastic Solo cups and plastic dice, but the boozy social game is the same.
Beer Pong
What you need:
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A Ping-Pong table, beer-pong table, or large rectangle-shaped dining table
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Ping-Pong balls (six would be good in case you lose some)
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Twenty plastic sixteen-ounce cups (or if you want to get fancy you can use sixteen-ounce glasses)
Setup:
Arrange ten cups on both ends of the table in a triangle formation like the way bowling pins and billiard balls are arranged. Pour around four ounces of beer into each cup (or however much you want).
Rules:
Decide on teams. Each team takes turns throwing a Ping-Pong ball into a cup on the opposing side. If the ball lands in a cup, then someone from the other team has to drink the beer in that cup. The empty cup is removed from the table. The team that clears all the cups from the opposing team wins.
Tips:
Keep a cup of water on standby to rinse off the ball if needed. You will need eighty ounces of beer just to start the game with four ounces in each cup. A six-pack has seventy-two ounces. So plan accordingly.
Quarters
What you need:
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A clean table (a round wooden table works the best but it’s not necessary)
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Beer of your choice
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A clean glass
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A clean quarter
Setup:
Set the glass of beer and quarter on the table.
Rules:
Take turns trying to bounce the quarter into the glass. If the quarter goes into the glass, then you choose who drinks the beer.
Tips:
For germaphobes, have everyone wash his or her hands before the game starts.
Flip Cup
Setup:
Line up the same number of cups on each side of a table. You choose how many cups you want to line up. Fill each cup with about four ounces of beer.
The Rules:
To win, one side of the table must drink and flip over all of their cups before the other side does. Two or more people can play. You can play one-on-one or each side can have team members. On the count of three, the first players drink the entire contents of a cup then set the cup on the edge of the table (bottom of the cup on the table hanging half over the edge). They then attempt to flip the cup over to land on the rim. You are only allowed to touch the bottom of the cup when trying to flip it over. It may take several attempts. Once the cup has been flipped over successfully, then you move to the next cup and repeat.
Drunk Jenga
What you need:
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A box of Jenga blocks
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A permanent marker
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Drinks of your choice
Setup:
Write different rules, instructions, or challenges on the Jenga blocks. Keep in mind that there are fifty-four blocks in a Jenga box, so you will need to figure out what you want to write. Some blocks can be left blank, some can say the same thing on ten blocks, it’s all up to you. The game can be G- to X-rated. It all depends on your party.
Ideas include: Take two drinks, everyone must drink, remove one article of clothing then drink, or if you have a bunch of different alcohol in the house then write those on the block for them to drink. A quick search on Pinterest or Google Images will give you tons of ideas.
Rules:
Use regular Jenga rules.
Shot Roulette
What you need:
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A bunch of shot glasses
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Different types of alcohol (beer, wine, vodka, whiskey, tequila, rum, liqueurs, etc.)
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An empty bottle
Setup:
Place an empty bottle in the middle of a table, then make a large circle of shot glasses around the bottle. Fill the shot glasses with different alcohols of your choice.
Rules:
Take turns spinning the bottle and whatever shot glass the bottle is pointing to when it stops, you have to drink it.
Tips:
Mix in some gag shots like apple cider vinegar, or a few dashes of hot sauce in tequila, etc.
Water Roulette
What you need:
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Several shot glasses
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An empty bottle
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Water
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A plain or flavored clear spirit (or several plain or flavored clear spirits like vodka, gin, rum, Everclear, tequila, moonshine, sambuca, liqueurs, etc.)
Setup:
Place an empty bottle in the middle of a table, then make a large circle of shot glasses around the bottle. Fill half the shot glasses with clear alcohols of your choice and the other half with water.
Rules:
Take turns spinning the bottle and whatever shot glass the bottle is pointing to when it stops the player must drink it, then convincingly say, “Mmmmmmmm, water.” If you call the player out and say he or she is lying, and you’re right, that player has to spin and drink again, but if you’re wrong, then that player does not have to spin and drink again.
Sixes
What you need:
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One die
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Six different-sized glasses ranging in size from very small to very large
Setup:
Fill up each glass with a different alcoholic drink. Then line them up on a table, giving each glass a number from one to six.
Rules:
Take turns rolling the die. Whatever number you roll, then that is your drink. If the number you roll is taken, then keep rolling until you get an available drink number.
Tips:
On the very large drinks, you may want to use a lot of mixers or it will be a very short game.