How to Involve Alcohol in Your Friendly Game of Cornhole

Certain competitions that almost certainly originated as drinking games have begun to creep into popular culture in other ways, and perhaps the single best example here is cornhole. While many people have played this as purely a drinking game for a long time, recent years have seen cornhole competitions spring up in notable places like ESPN — but we haven’t forgotten how enjoyable it is for the casual drinkers among us! 

At CoCos in the House, we’re big fans of drinking games and related forms of safe, responsible fun involving alcohol — and we offer numerous accessories to help you enjoy yourself, from beverage accessories to T-shirts, hats and much more. For those just learning about it for the first time, or who may have seen it on ESPN recently, what exactly is cornhole? More specifically, if you’ve only seen it during elite-level competition on your TV, how can the same game be played as a fun backyard drinking game? Let’s dive in.

What is Cornhole?

First and foremost, cornhole is a game played with two boards placed at a distance from each other, with small bags of corn (or beanbags) thrown at the boards in an attempt to land them through a hole in the board. The game originated as a pastime on American farms, and it was only later that it became commonly known as a drinking game.

Some people credit the invention of cornhole to a man named Matthias Kupperman in the 1300s, who is credited with a very rudimentary setup involving rocks. Some even believe the ancient Greeks played a similar game of some kind. However, there’s not much certainty on any of that, and certainly none on how the modern game itself really became popular in the US.

Where is Cornhole Popular?

Simply put, nearly everywhere at this point. While cornhole first gained steam in midwestern states (this also may have something to do with the name “cornhole,” as corn is much more popular in the Midwest than elsewhere), it has quickly gained popularity throughout the country.

This is in part due to the fact that, as we’ve already mentioned, ESPN began televising cornhole competitions in recent years. This has helped to legitimize the game and make it more mainstream, which in turn has helped it to grow in popularity even more.

Basic Rules of Cornhole

Before we get into how to play cornhole as a drinking game, let’s first go over the basic rules. To start, you just need two cornhole boards, which are placed 27 feet apart from each other (you can alter this distance based on the experience levels of who is playing, if you want, but that’s the “official” distance). If you’re playing with a partner, team up so that one person is standing at each board.

Each team has four bags of corn (or beanbags), which they will take turns throwing at the other team’s board. The goal is to land the bag through the hole in the board, which is located at the top and is 12 inches in diameter. If a bag goes through the hole, that team gets three points. If a bag lands on the board but does not go through the hole, that team gets one point.

Now, most forms of cornhole are “scored” using what’s known as cancellation scoring. That is, if Team A scores 8 points on a given round, and Team B scores 6 points, the lower number will be subtracted from the higher number — and in this case, Team A would simply be awarded 2 points from that round for the overall game score, while Team B would be awarded zero for that round.

To be clear, these rules are just the standard rules for cornhole. You can absolutely make up your own house rules as you see fit when playing a drinking game version, which we’ll get into shortly.

Cornhole Drinking Game Rules

Now that you know the basic rules of cornhole, how can you turn it into a drinking game? It’s actually quite simple, and there are multiple different ways of doing so. Some examples:

• Equate points with drinks: Perhaps the simplest format for making cornhole a drinking game is assigning some level of required drinking based on points. So for example, if a team scores 3 points on a given round, each member of that team has to drink 3 sips of their beverage. Or if a team scored 1 point, they would have to drink 1 sip, and so on.
• Assign drinks based on misses: Another popular way to play is assigning drinks based on misses rather than points scored. So for example, if a team misses a shot, they would have to drink 1 sip of their beverage. If they miss 3 shots in a row, they would have to drink 3 sips, and so on.
• Assign drinks based on successful shots: You could also play by assigning drinks based on successful shots rather than (or in addition to) points or misses. So for example, if a team makes a shot, they could assign 2 sips to the other team. If they make 3 shots in a row, they could assign 6 sips, and so on.
• Losing team finishes their drink: If you want to make things a bit more intense, you could also simply play that the losing team has to finish their drinks once the game is over. This obviously makes things a bit more serious, but can also be a lot of fun — especially if you’re playing with friends or family members who are up for a challenge.

These are just a few examples — feel free to get creative and come up with your own ideas as well.

For more on how to make cornhole into a safe, fun drinking game, or to learn about any of our funny drinking shirts, shotskis, beer koozies or other drinking-related products, speak to our team at CoCos in the House today.