Inside: Everything you need to know about drunk Jenga with your adult over 21+ friends this summer.
My favorite game as a child was Jenga. My family and I used to play for HOURS every single weekend, and those memories will make me smile for the rest of my life. As I get older, I am constantly looking for more ways to merge my inner child hobbies with the ones that I like to do now.
So I started asking myself, “How can we make Jenga more interesting for adults?”.
I googled it, and apparently, someone else had already been in the same mind space as me because there, sitting at the top of the search suggestions, were the words ‘Drunk Jenga’.
These two words were called to me like a beacon. I spent the next few hours learning everything I could about drunk jenga, and I am going to share that knowledge with you.
Below you will find the ultimate guide to drunk jenga. The game may be simple, but there are SO many ways that you can make it even more magical and fun. Are you ready for the night of your life? Well…if you play right, you may not remember it…but it’s still worth it! This is the ultimate party drinking game!
Table of Contents
What is Drunk Jenga?
Though it sounds simple, it’s not as black and white as you may think. I bet you imagined just having drinks while playing Jenga, huh? Well, if you did, you would be wrong, my friend!
Drunk Jenga is similar to regular Jenga, except each block you pull has a call to action on it. It might say something like, “Chug your drink” and then you have to do it. That is what separates this awesome game from the original. You aren’t just pulling and stacking, you are pulling, stacking, and doing dares! It’s loads of fun.
How do you play drunken Jenga?
Okay, so in order to teach you how to play this game, I am going to just explain an entire play-through, that way, you understand exactly what is going on and the way this game will play out.
In order to play Drunk Jenga, you must have a set of Jenga blocks, each with its own command on them. I will go into more detail on what you can put on them in the lists below. Set up your tower, and gather up your players. Everyone has to take the preliminary shot, this signals that the game is starting.
The first person will pull a block and read whatever command is written on it. It could say, “Take a drink” or “Pull another”, the player then has to do whatever the command says. Then the next person goes, and this process repeats. You are never allowed to use your hand to support the tower as you or pulling, or after. That is cheating!
You go around the players until the tower inevitably falls. Then the person who made it fall has to finish their drink. That’s it! You have played a round of Drunk Jenga.
What do you write on drunk Jenga?
Wonderful question, what do you write on drink jenga is one of the most asked things on the internet. Okay, that is an exaggeration, but it is still very sought-after information. There are just so many blocks; it can be hard to find different commands when there are tons to write down. So I made a little list to get you started.
1. “Take a sip”
2. “Take a shot”
3. “Finish Your Drink”
4. “Beer Bong Time”
5. “Pull Another Block”
6. “Double Trouble, Pull another and Take Another Shot”
7. “Make a Toast”
8. “Play Flip Cup” – Check out these minute to win it cup games!
9. “Play Thumb War with the person to your right”
10. “Chug for 5 Seconds”
11. “Chug for 15 Seconds”
12. “Chug for 10 Seconds”
13. “Chug for 3 Seconds”
14. “Make an Insta Post”
15. “Make an Insta Post”
16. “Make a Facebook Post”
17. “Make a Snapchapt Post”
18. “Make a Tiktok Post”
19. “Call Your Mom”
20. “Prank Call Someone”
21. “Arm Wrestle Person To Your Left”
22. “Truth or Dare”
23. “Give A Shot to A Player”
24. “Make a Dad Joke, If no one laughs, drink.”
25. “Hot Seat”
26. “Take of A Piece of clothing.”
27. “Sing Opera”
28. “Never Have I Ever”
29. “Have a Staring Contest”
30. “Play Flip Cup”
What is the 10 second rule in Jenga?
Okay, so everyone knows that the whole point of the game is to avoid tumbling down the tower. Well, there is one more rule for this game that I have yet to touch upon, and that is the 10-second rule. The ten-second rule refers to the fact that your turn only ends 10 seconds after you stack your block.
This is to stop you from blaming your spill on the next player, so to speak. Could you imagine getting to your turn and the tower falling over before you even touched it? That would so NOT be fair! This rule helps to avoid that, which keeps this game even and equal for all players.
When Was Drunk Jenga Invented?
I think to answer this; I’m going to have to give you the history of Jenga itself. According to this article, the game was created by Leslie Scott in the early 70s. When discussing its background, the article described the creation of the game as follows below.
Leslie Scott was the co-founder of Oxford Games Ltd. and she was born and grew up in East Africa. She spoke English and also Swahili. It was the early ‘70s and the game evolved within her family by using building blocks. The family had purchased the blocks from a sawmill in Takoradi, Ghana as Ghana was a huge producer of wood. They had come up with this simple stacking game and found it to be pretty fun and addicting to play. Leslie played around with a few names of what to call it. The first one was “chezza” which means to play. But it was also the name of their dog so she looked for something else.
They thought about what was involved with the game and that the whole principle was to basically just build. The word “Jenga” means “build” which comes from the word “cojenga” which means “to build”. After coming across this the name stuck right away. Some people think that this is an ancient African game but it’s not and no such game exists. It seems like such a simple concept that it must have been used centuries before but Scott researched everything, as well as lived in Africa, to find out it was an original game.
So what did you think of drunk jenga? Doesn’t it just seem like the ultimate party game? You can truly never go wrong with an upgraded classic! Next thing you know, you’ll be making drinking games out of all your favorite memories. That is what adulthood is all about.
I think that we would all be a little bit happier if we were to try and include the things we loved as children in our daily lives. Drunk Jenga is just one way of many(Check out the Grinch Drinking Game). Of course, you can’t play this every day because it wouldn’t be the best on your liver, but it is a great way to party when the time is appropriate.
I hope you love playing this version of the classic child game as much as I do. You just never know what block you are going to pull! The night is yours to do whatever the blocks will you too. Enjoy it!