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Drinking games are games which involve the drinking of alcoholic beverages.

[edit] History

[edit] Ancient Greece

Symposium, with scene of Kottabos - fresco from the Tomb of the Diver in Paestum, 475 BC

Wager cup, maker's mark of Joseph Walker (Dublin, Ireland)^[1]

According to Rupert Thompson of the University of Cambridge, the earliest reference to drinking games in Western literature is from Plato's Symposium The Drinking Party. The game was simple: fill a bowl with wine, drink it, slap it, and pass it on to the next person. Kottabos is one of the earliest known drinking games from ancient Greece, dated to the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Players would use dregs to hit targets across the room with their wine. Often, there were special prizes and penalties for one's performance in the game.^[2]

[edit] Ancient China

Drinking games were enjoyed in ancient China, usually incorporating the use of dice or verbal exchange of riddles.^[3] During the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the Chinese used a silver canister where written lots could be drawn that designated which player had to drink and specifically how much; for example, from 1, 5, 7, or 10 measures of drink that the youngest player, or the last player to join the game, or the most talkative player, or the host, or the player with the greatest alcohol tolerance, etc. had to drink^[4] There were even drinking game referee officials, including a 'registrar of the rules' who knew all the rules to the game, a 'registrar of the horn' who tossed a silver flag down on calling out second offenses, and a 'governor' who decided one's third call of offense.^[5] These referees were used mainly for maintaining order (as drinking games often became rowdy) and for reviewing faults that could be punished with a player drinking a penalty cup.^[5] If a guest was considered a 'coward' for dropping out of the game, he could be branded as a 'deserter' and not invited back to further drinking bouts.^[5] There was another game where little puppets and dolls dressed as western foreigners with blue eyes (Iranian peoples) were set up and when one fell over, the person it pointed to had to empty his cup of wine.^[6]

[edit] Types of games

[edit] Endurance games

The simplest drinking games are endurance games in which players compete to out-drink each other. Players take turns taking shots, and the last person standing is the winner. Some games have rules involving the "cascade", "fountain" or "waterfall", which encourages each player to drink constantly from their cup so long as the player before him does not stop drinking. Such games can also favor speed over quantity, in which case players race to drink a beer the fastest.

[edit] Speed games

Many pub or bar games involve competitive drinking for speed and not necessarily quantity consumed. The object of these games may not be inebriation, but may involve simply "bragging rights" or wagers of cash which benefit the fastest drinker. Examples of drinking games involving speed are boat and case races, Edward Fortyhands, beer bonging, shotgunning and yard.

[edit] World records for speed beer drinking

Steven Petrosino, during his successful June 1977 Guinness World record attempt at the Gingerbreadman Pub in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He established records for ¼ litre (0.137 seconds), and for ½ litre (0.4 seconds), but Guinness accepted only the record for 1 litre.

The Guinness Book of Records began to list world records for speed drinking in this category in the early 1960s. These early drinking records involved drinking beer from challenging vessels such as the yard of ale glass, which, if not correctly mastered, resulted in the user receiving a blast of beer in his or her face. The 1969 edition of the Guinness Book lists The Broom (age 20) of The Bantry as having consumed a 2.5 pint yard of ale in 6.5 seconds on December 17, 1964. The 1974 edition lists Jack Boyle, age 52, of Barrow-in-Furness as having consumed a 3 pint yard of ale in 10.15 seconds on May 14, 1971. In the mid 1970s, Guinness began to list speed records achieved using any drinking vessel. The 1977 edition dropped the earlier records established by Hill and Boyle, and listed a 2.5 pint yard record by the RAF at Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire in 5.0 seconds and a three pint yard record established at Corby Town F.C. on January 23, 1976 in 5.5 seconds". The 1977 edition listed the new world record established at the Gingerbreadman Pub by Steven Petrosino, (age 25) of New Cumberland, Pennsylvania on June 22, 1977. Petrosino drank 1 litre of beer in 1.3 seconds. Video: ¼ litre in 0.18 seconds Petrosino approached the challenge scientifically, and used two specially designed half-litre drinking vessels to establish this world beer record.^[7] The 1977 edition also lists Peter G. Dowdeswell of Earls Barton for drinking two pints of beer from a single vessel in 2.3 seconds on June 11, 1975 and two litres in 6.0 seconds on 7 February 1975. These records were all dropped from the Guinness book in 1991 due to concerns about litigation.^[8][9]

[edit] Thinking games

Thinking games rely on the players' powers of observation, recollection, logic and articulation. Such games are not difficult at the onset, but become much more challenging as the game continues as players become inebriated and their coordination and memory deteriorate.

Numerous types of thinking games exist. In memory games, each player must repeat a series of events, add to it, and when a player forgets, he or she must take a drink. Thinking games include 21, beer checkers, bizz buzz, buffalo, bullshit, caps, Captain Paf, matchboxes, one fat hen, roman numerals, fuzzy duck, and zoom schwartz profigliano. Trivia games, such as Trivial Pursuit, are sometimes played as drinking games.

[edit] Skill games

Several games involve a skill such as scoring a ping-pong or darts. Players must have good aim throughout the entire game, even as they become increasingly inebriated. Examples of these games include Beirut, Pong, Beerdarts, and Corners.

[edit] Card games

Several popular drinking games involving cards are asshole, connections, fuck the dealer, horserace, Circle of Death, Kings, liar's poker, Drawbridge Drinking Game, pyramid, King of Fire, ride the bus and Up the River, (Down the River) and artichoke.

[edit] Dice games

Dice games include 7-11-doubles, beer die, dudo, kinito, kranen, liar's dice, mexico, mia, pounce!, ship, captain, and crew, tablero da Gucci, three man, and die of death.

[edit] Tolerance games

Tolerance games are about seeing which player can last the longest. It can be as simple as going shot for shot until one person passes out. Power Hour and its variant, Century Club, fall under this category. King Of The Pirates is a group-tolerance game.

[edit] Movie games

Movie drinking games are played while watching a movie (sometimes a TV show or a sporting event) and have a set of rules for who drinks when and how much based on on-screen events and dialogue. The rules may be the same for all players, or alternatively players may each be assigned rules related to particular characters. The rules are designed so that rarer events require larger drinks. Rule sets for such games are usually arbitrary and local, although they are sometimes published by fan clubs. There are popular drinking games associated with the film Withnail and I and the song Roxanne (song) by the Police. Another popular game is associated with the movie Top Gun, where players drink whenever a call sign (Maverick, Goose, Iceman), is said. Another variation is Thunderdrunk, where, while listening to Thunderstruck by AC/DC, a group of players alternate drinking each time the word "thunder" or "thunderstruck" or both (depending on the number of players or how drunk you want to get) is said and must continue drinking until "Thunderstruck" or "Thunder" is said again or until the song is over. A game popular in Southern California is The Big Lebowski drinking game, in which a drink is taken every time the word fuck is said on screen. Another one can be played while watching "Dazed and Confused". Whenever the charater Mitch Kramer touches his face everybody drinks.

[edit] Object Games

Object games are usually simple games that involve using a random object in order to administer drinking "fines". Some good examples of object games are Pennying and the The Golf Ball Game.

[edit] The Game of The Slap

The participants should slap each other in turns until one quits and has to drink a considerably strong and big drink. This game has been invented in Portugal.

[edit] Miscellaneous games

There are many other drinking games that cannot be categorized any certain way, such as never have I ever and the Vegetable Game. Another game involving external interaction uses a busy roadway and a lawn sign labeled "Honk = Drink" or something similar. Whenever a passing driver honks their horn, the participants drink.

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

[edit] Resources

• Benn, Charles (2002). China's Golden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-517665-0.
• Schafer, Edward H. (1963). The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A study of T’ang Exotics. University of California Press. Berkeley and Los Angeles. 1st paperback edition: 1985. ISBN 0-520-05462-8.

[edit] External links

• Drinking Games at the Open Directory Project
• Lazydork's Movie Drinking Games