If you thought that drinking games were invented in recent years by students playing ring of fire, Roxanne and beer pong, youd be very wrong. Our boozy ancestors and their inebriated friends have been playing with alcohol since ancient times. Forget suited gentlemen sipping brandy over a civilized game of chess. The drinking games of yore were messy, silly, violent, bizarre and completely irresponsible. Some games were lighthearted fun and should definitely be reintroduced to pre-drinking rituals, but others were testosterone-fuelled competitive displays of manliness (sound familiar?). Its difficult to believe that anything could be more foolish than the notorious neknomination craze that hit everyones Facebook pages not so long ago, but at least that didnt involve slicing off body parts or drinking blood (at least, we hope no one went that far). Its amazing that any progress at all happened when our predecessors had such a rich tradition of getting sloshed. According to the Pythons, even our favourite philosophers were at it:Sit back and enjoy these 9 drinking games that people were playing centuries before you ever picked up a ping pong ball and threw it into a cup of beer or arranged a pack of cards in a circle around the kings cup.
9. The Wager Cup
Where it was played: Wager cups were used from around the 16th century in England, Holland and other parts of Europe. How it was played: Made of wood, pewter or silver, most cups took the form of a woman in a long dress or skirt holding a pail above her head. The skirt and pail, which could swivel all the way around, were both filled with wine. The drinker was expected to finish the contents of both cups without spilling a drop. If any wine escaped, the unfortunate drinker presumably had to pay a forfeit. It is also thought that cups like this were used at wedding banquets in 16th and 17th century Nuremberg, Germany. Apparently the groom would drink wine out of the skirt while the bride would simultaneously attempt to drink it out of the pail without getting any on her pretty gown.