Everyone likes a good party, but parties aren’t always good. Well what is it that really gets a party started then? Is it a bunch of people? Frozen shot slides? Foam or brightly colored paint? While all these features might make a party better, the one thing every party needs to get started is a good drinking game. When the first kids show up at 10 o’clock because they were just too bored to stay at home for another minute there is only one thing they need: beer, and a lot of it. Whether you’re the host or just one of those early birds, you have a responsibility to come up with a good drinking game to get everyone’s night started, but don’t worry I’m here to help you out. Let’s start the list:
5. Power Hour: Power hour has long been known as a pre-game routine where a couple of people sit around before going out to a party or club, just to get in the right mood before hand, but thanks now to youtube.com, that has changed. To explain, power hour is a game where two or more people take a drink every 60 seconds for one hour, sounds simple enough right? Well after about half an hour, telling time from an analog clock isn’t so easy anymore, which used to cause problems for players, but not anymore. If you search youtube for power hour songs, you’ll find yourself in an endless field of mixes spanning all styles of music and quenching all different tastes. Nowadays, power hours aren’t limited to just pre-game get-togethers; they can last all night long, or as long as the players can still hear the music.
4. Kings/ Ring of Fire: No, this is not two games tied for fourth place; this is the game I’ve always known as Ring of Fire. Some schools of thought would argue that the true name of the game is really Kings, but either way, the rules are basically the same: You get a deck of cards and place all the cards face down in a circle around a full cup of beer with each player with his or her own beer as well. After the cards are placed, it’s time to decide who goes first. Many times, it will be decided as the last person to touch their nose after the cards and center beer have all be placed, but house rules vary greatly in this field. When the first person draws, they announce the card value and what it means, then the person to their left (clockwise) draws. The values of each card are as follows: Ace means social, where everyone drinks and many times a toast is made. Two to six in a black suit means the drawer must take the card’s value of drinks, but two to six in a red suit allows the drawer to give that number of drinks to other players. Seven is the infamous waterfall where everyone must start chugging their beer and you can only stop once the person to your right has stopped and only the drawer may stop first. Eight is thumbs where everyone puts their thumbs on the table and the last person to do so drinks, similar to the nose idea for determining the first to draw. Nine is the all time favorite: Rhyme! The drawer says a word, phrase or sentence and the person to his or her left must come up with a rhyme with a similar structure (word, phrase or sentence) where the last word must rhyme. (ex: “I shop at a store” can be followed by “I say we drink some more” or the word “eat” can be followed by the word “feet” but the structure of sentence vs. word must be upheld for each player) If a player fails to come up with a rhyme or repeats a word, he or she must drink. Ten is categories where the drawer comes up with a category and names an object classified in that category and it continues to the person on his or her left but if a person can’t think of one or repeats an object, he or she drinks. An example of the category might be “beers” and the first person would say something like “Coors” followed by “Miller” but if a person says “Cherry coke” or repeats one of the beers already mentioned, he or she drinks. A jack is for guys to drink and a queen means it’s the girls’ turn. When it comes to a king, he who draws the one of the first three kings gets to make a new rule, that if broken is punishable by a drink. A rule might be “no using the letter b” or “no drinking with your right hand” and must be followed for the remainder of the game. He who draws the fourth and final king must chug the contents of the center cup which, in turn, concludes the game.
3. Quarters: Quarters is a very common and easy to play game where two players face head to head to try and slam a quarter against a table and have it bounce into their opponent’s cup. If a quarter is successfully bounced into your cup, you must drink it. This game may be played one on one or in a line down the length of a table as a team race. The rules of the team race are very similar, but of course with a few quirks. The players line up on either side of the table, each player on the team must have exactly one opponent across from them. The game starts on either end of the table and the two opposing players must try and bounce a quarter into their opponent’s cup. When the cup is made, the next player in line for that team may begin, but the opposing team may not move on until the first player has made his target cup. The game ends when one of the teams successfully scores in all the target cups.
2. Flip Cup: Flip cup is not for everyone, but once mastered, it can become one of your favorite drinking games. The object is not to skillfully force your opponent into drinking his or her beer, it is to finish yours as fast as possible, place the cup face up on the edge of the table with a bit of the bottom hanging over, then try to flip it so that it lands open part down directly on the table. To be clearer, two players start face to face on a table, begin chugging their beer at the same time and once finished, each player places the empty cup face up on the very edge of the table. This allows the player to then hit the bottom of the cup (the part hanging off the edge of the table) in an attempt to have the cup land with the open face down on the table. If the player fails to do this, he or she can reset the cup to its face up position and remake the attempt. A similar team race style variation of this is also very popular. In the team version, opposing teams meet face to face with each player having exactly one opponent. The race begins at one end of the table and only when the current player successfully flips his or her cup can the next player on the team begin drinking. The game is over when one of the teams has all of their cups flipped.
1. Beer Pong: I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I list beer pong as the number one drinking game, but this title is not unearned. Beer pong is played by setting up partially filled cups in a triangle formation (starting at 6 cups) on opposite sides of a table and tossing a ping pong ball into your opponents’ cups. If you make the ball in the cup, they must drink the contents. Players take turns in the attempt to make shots and the starting player is usually decided by the first person to make a cup while looking eye to eye with an opponent and simultaneously tossing the balls. This in itself sounds like a lot of fun, but really this is only the beginning. Beer pong is not the number one drinking game because of its strict rules or set standards, it’s number one because of how versatile the game really is. Beer pong can be played with 144 cups per side or more and sometimes may include five or more people on each team. The rules for bouncing balls are generally dictated by the house and there are countless other rules floating around to make the game just that much more interesting. (ex: if a ball rolls back to its thrower, the thrower can retry the shot by shooting behind their back.)
Now that you have the knowledge, it’s time to throw a party and start some of your own versions of these classic drinking games. Have fun and as always, please drink responsibly.
