Old Fashioned Fun

Bloody Fun
Where: England
When: 17th Century
Way back in Jolly Olde England, drinking and drunkenness was heavily linked to swearing your political allegiance. Much in the way, you’d hug your friends totally wasted and say, “I f*cking love you, man,” “Roaring Royalists” used to one-up their friends in declaring allegiance to the king by putting their asses on the line. Literally. After singing drunken ballads to His Highness and the church, festivities would often escalate to playing a “game” where everyone who was loyal enough would slice off a piece of their rump, and then toast their own blood (instead of wine) to the monarchy. As you can imagine, the game went horribly wrong on a fairly regular basis, seeing how drunks wielding knives and performing elective surgery on themselves isn’t the smartest idea. The ultimate bar scar.

The Dreaded Puzzle Jug
Where: France
When: 1300’s
The puzzle jug was basically created to test the mental agility of people hopped up on happy juice. More importantly, it was an easy way to make drunks look like assholes. The jugs were filled with wine, but also covered with holes. If a drunk genius didn’t tilt the jug in exactly the right way, and cover up the right holes, the contents would spill all over him. In addition to the laugh factor, barflies often gambled on whether a new drunk had the mental chops to get the wine from the jug into their mouth. But since the contents more than often ended up on the victim’s shirt, the jugs remained a popular bar room feature for the next 400 years. Why we don’t still have this is baffling.

When in Rome
Where: Rome
When: Olden days
After important dinners, Romans used to indulge in convivium, which were more of a politeness endurance test than a game. The rules were simple, but strict. Namely, the host determined how much everyone was going to drink (anywhere from 1 to 11 glasses of the good stuff). Then everyone drank in a ritualized form. And while staying in the contest didn’t actually get you that much (except really, really drunk), being kicked out was a huge deal. If you couldn’t keep up, couldn’t down your drink in one pull, refused a beverage, or let out a burp during the festivities, you’d essentially be banned from hanging out at future convivium. History’s first party foul.

Poo-bum-dickie
Where: ?
When: ?
Still played today, poo-bum-dickie isn’t exactly ancient, but it is definitely based on antiquated counting. The game basically involves counting in a circle in Roman numerals, using the word “poo” for I, “bum” for V, and “dickie” for X. Of course, if anyone says the wrong word, hesitates for too long, or giggles, the penalty is to drink. The game got slightly funnier when some students in Essex changed the phrases to “No”, “Daddy” and “Don’t Touch Me.” Ah, child abuse…does it ever get unfunny?

Flicking Wine
Where: Greece
When: Back in the day
Like an ancient version of beer pong, one of the most popular games in ancient Greece was kottabos, where participants flicked the dregs of a cup at a target in the middle of the room. Not only were you judged on whether the droplets hit the target (which was generally a disk balanced on a thin stand), but also if you used the correct throwing motion. Prizes, like sweets and kisses from servers, were awarded for hitting the mark, while improvised penalties (along with copious drinking) were assigned for missing. According to one source, Athenaeus claimed that many Greeks “took as much pride in playing kottabos as others did in hurling the javelin.” Not much has changed, besides getting kisses from sexually immature boy-servants as a reward.

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