The Korean Booze Saga continues with our second installment straight from Andong, South Korea! After our first video covering the most common forms of alcohol you’ll find in Korea, we started planning for a three-part series. In this second installment, we cover some of the most common and simplest drinking games we’ve see or have been taught. With the summer heat putting an oppressive end to our afternoon, we thought it would be fitting to play some games with our friends Scott and Megan from Bobo & Chichi to pass the time while in this iconic folk village.



We don’t claim to be experts on drinking games and or drinking culture in South Korea. Plenty of people could rattle off dozens of games that we’ve omitted, but these are some of the most memorable games/activities we could recall from the late nights where you learn these sort of games. Some of these rules and procedures aren’t exactly correct and we might have messed up a few things, but you can get the idea! These games are obviously easier the more you play and familiarize yourself with the vocabulary and procedure, but the alcohol acts as an equalizer the later into the game players get.

Plenty of informative videos exist on YouTube that show other drinking games from South Korea, and with a quick search you’ll quickly discover that this country has a proclivity for enhancing/enabling the consumption of increasingly more worrisome amounts of alcohol. While we enjoy a stiff drink and have a fondness for drinking games in a safe environment, we should remind everyone to be safe when playing any of these games. Be responsible, but have fun. It was Albert Einstein who famously said that “Korean drinking games are proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” He was a smart guy. You should listen to him.


1. Soju

Played with a bottle of soju, obviously! For this game, when you take the lid ff the bottle, stuff a tissue into the lid. The tissue covers a secret number that will be used for the following game. The little metal “tail” that is attached to the lid should be carefully twisted into a tight spiral. You then simply take turns flicking this twisted tail around your circle of friends. If you successfully flick it off, the people on either side of you then have to take a shot of, you guessed it, SOJU! Easy peasy and one of the most popular drinking games in South Korea.


2. High / Low

Now here’s where your tissue you’ve stuffed into the lid comes in handy! Inside every bottle lid in Korea, there’s a number between 1-50. The winner of the previous game of Soju can now choose between the two “losers” from the game of Soju. The person they choose can peak at the number and the remaining members of the group can then take turns guessing the number. The person who has peaked the digits can tell them if their guess is higher or lower than the actual number. The same rules apply as the game of Soju, if you guess it, the two people on either side of you must drink!


3. Tap

For this game, each person playing will need their own drink. It involves tapping your cup on the table. The person who starts taps their cup on the table. One tap passes the game to the right, two taps passes it to the person to the left, and three taps skips the person to their right and goes to the person next to them. Sound a bit complicated? Well, check out the video and see how the confusion turns into laughs and into more drinking. Which is the point of these games anyway, right?!


4. Baskin Robins 31

This game is played in a clockwise fashion. You simply count, but you cannot go higher than three numbers or lower than one when it is your turn. The person who is stuck with the number thirty one loses and therefore has to drink. You keep going around clockwise until the game is over and a big fat loser is determined. This is a fun game for those math lovers out there, as you can easily win if you know what pattern to look for. You can continue this game by eliminating people until you come to an ultimate winner!


5. 007

In Korean, these numbers are kong (0) kong (0) chil (7). In this game you point to people (including yourself) with your hands like a gun. The first person starts off aiming at a person (or themselves) saying, “KONG.” This passes it to the person they pointed to, and they in turn point to someone else, saying, “KONG.” That person then chooses someone to aim at saying, “Chil!” The person they point to must say, “BANG!” and the people on either side of them put their hands up in the air, in surrender. You screw up, you drink. Watch the video to see this fast paced and fun game in action.


6. Rabbit

For this game, the starting person holds a fake carrot like they are a little rabbit and while pretending to eat it it you say in a really cute voice, “tokki, tokki” (rabbit, rabbit). The people on either side must say in their cutest rabbit voice, “danggeun, danggeun” (carrot, carrot). Afterwards, the rabbit with the fake carrot will “pass” it to another person/rabbit and repeat. If you mess up, you drink!


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