Icelandic Drinking Game

By Tommy Leung on 02/25/2009 in Life

I was at McSorley’s in the East Village neighborhood of New York City with a few European friends last Thursday. McSorley’s is the oldest ale house in NY and from what I’ve gathered in the couple times that I have been there, they only serve light or dark ale. I was at a wine bar called Absinthe not far from McSorley’s earlier in the night. They don’t actually serve any absinthe–sad.

So while at McSorley’s, we met these two guys from Iceland. It didn’t hit me at first that Iceland is bankrupt–I hard forgotten. I did ask those two how it was over there with their money being virtually worthless. They were pretty drunk but the main idea was that it isn’t good–they told me that Iceland had found oil and that would solve their problems.

With all that serious and political stuff aside, they introduced us to a drinking game. This is apparently the only drinking game in all of Iceland–I guess they aren’t that creative. From what I gathered, the name of the game is called Viking–it sounded like “White King” with their accent.

You need to have a decent number of people to play this game–at least four. You sit around a table and someone is chosen to be the Viking. The two people sitting next to the Viking–on each side–needs to pretend to row a paddle furiously.

Imagine you are on a boat with the Viking in the middle. You cannot row inside the boat–if you do, you drink. The person who is the Viking also makes horns on the top of his or her head with their hands.

Now, the person who is the Viking will need to pass on the priviledge of being a Viking to someone else. Once they do, that person needs to make the horns on their head and the two other people sitting next to the new Viking needs to row.

Anyone who messes up needs to drink. This can basically go on forever. It is the most active drinking game I have ever played.

By Tommy Leung