5 of History's Least Fun Drinking Games

5 The Contest That Lost Guam

Guam was in a strange position in the 19th century, when a bunch of Spaniards were walking around like they owned the place. Into this setting, we have the account of Captain Anderson, a Scottish man posted to the island along with a bunch of other British officers. Anderson cozied up to the island’s governor (possibly Pablo Pérez, who had the official title of Governor of the Spanish Mariana Islands). By getting the man thoroughly drunk, Anderson was able to physically expel him from the governor’s home and let in his own men, who now controlled the armory, and with it, the whole island.

Now, the British had to decide among themselves which of them would replace the ousted governor as Guam’s chief dignitary. The most meritocratic way to choose this was for all the men to drink. At any time during this contest, a man could decide he’d hit his capacity and withdraw, and the last man standing would win the title. 

None of them formally did win the title. Instead, they all got so drunk that the Spanish were easily able to retake the house and bind the men, hand and foot. As punishment, the organizers of the coup were put on a raft and exiled. This raft very soon bounced right back to shore, whereupon the governor pardoned the men, figuring they’d done no long-term harm. 

4 Stalin’s Game of Guess-the-Temperature

When you hear the phrase “the party of Stalin,” you probably think about the Communist Party, and something about millions dying. But Stalin was also known for his dinner parties, held in his personal residence in Moscow once World War II ended. First, you would receive an invitation, and when the time for the soirée approached, armed guards would arrive to escort you there. Declining the invite wasn’t an option. 

The chief of the secret police, Lavrenty Beria, would always be present and would report guests who didn’t drink enough. Guests didn’t want to get drunk, for fear of what mistakes they might make once their inhibitions fell away, but drinking was mandatory. Stalin, meanwhile, diluted his own drinks or skipped drinking altogether, following instructions from his doctor. 

One time, guests had to play a game in which each of them had to guess the room’s temperature. For every degree they were off, they had to drink one shot of vodka. Beria himself missed the right temperature by three degrees then claimed to have done so on purpose, because that’s how much vodka he wanted to drink. Other guests apparently weren’t such fans of the festivities because they excused themselves and hid in the bathroom to wait it out. Beria then retrieved them from there and brought them out to face Stalin’s wrath. 

3 Alexander the Great Tried a Funeral Drinking Game. Most Died

Alexander the Great had an adviser named Kalanos, who liked getting naked. Kalanos was a thinker from India who believed that clothes got in the way of thinking. The Greeks had a name for such wise men: gymnosophists, which means “naked philosophers.” When Kalanos first met Alexander, he insisted they both get naked, to better communicate. The two men went on to share a fine friendship, until 73-year-old Kalanos one day set himself on fire and died. 

For Kalanos’ funeral, Alex held a wine drinking contest, in which the winner would get a gold crown. This winner was a man named Promachus, who drank four pitchers. That sounds impressive even before you learn that these pitchers held about three quarts each. That means he drank about 15 bottles of wine. 

You might not be surprised then to learn that Promachus died within three days. Sadly, he wasn’t the only one. Forty-one other participants died, and the chills they suffered along the way suggest that something was wrong with that wine even without drinking three gallons of the stuff. We’d ask Kalanos what he thinks about this, but he could not be reached for comment. 

2 Eighth-Century Punching

We don’t have historical accounts of this next game. What we do have is a 14-sided artifact, dating back to the eighth century and uncovered in 1975 during an archaeological dig. 

Normally, when we find some ancient object like this, we can only theorize about what purpose it served. We found a bunch of 12-sided Roman artifacts over the years, for example, and we still don’t know what they’re for. But this object from Gyeongju, South Korea, had text written all over it, letting us know quite clearly what it is. “Drink three glasses of liquor at one time,” says one side. “Finish an entire cup while interlocking arms with a companion,” says another. 

This object is a 14-sided die, and people must have rolled it as part of a drinking game. 

Those prompts sound fun enough. So does one that reads, “Sing the song ‘Weolgyeong.’” (“Weolgyeong,” we assume, was a major K-pop hit in the year 760. We’re a little less sure about one that says, “Drink from a cup without removing the dirty thing floating in it,” with no elaboration. And you better hope that the die didn’t land on 衆人打鼻, which read, “Have your nose struck by many companions.” 

You can construct yourself a replica of that die today, but you can’t roll the original. The archivists messed up when they were trying to preserve it, and they ended up destroying it. This is probably for the best, as this artifact was too powerful for humans to possess. 

1 The Falling Bear

Sweden made Charles XII its king when he was only 15, which was just asking for trouble. This was the end of the 17th century, and the summer of 1798 became legendary in Sweden for Charles’ crazy antics. His cousin the Duke came for a visit, and the two of them would throw furniture out the window, gallop through the streets on horses knocking off people’s hats and do other stuff that you’d might discipline a child for, but you couldn’t discipline this one because he was the king. 

The wilder stories about that summer said the two were cutting the heads off dogs and letting the floors of the palace turn slippery with blood, but at some point, historians concluded that people were just making stuff up to discredit royalty. The climax of Charles’ spree, though, came the following year, and this part really did happen.

The Duke came back for a visit, and he and Charles now decided to see how much Spanish wine they could feed to a captive bear. The bear got so drunk that it headed out the window and fell to its death. Charles got so traumatized that he swore he’d never drink again. And unlike every other 18-year-old who swears that, he pretty much adhered to that promise, outside of just one or two exceptions when doctors fed him alcohol when he was wounded. 

Possibly as a result of this, Charles grew up to be a successful military commander and won a bunch of wars. But then he pushed a little too far, and the Swedish Empire collapsed. So, all things in moderation then, including moderation. 

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