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Continue ShoppingYou may have seen our glass boots in our store, or photographs of people drinking from them. While it might be reminiscent of our Australian tradition of “drinking a shoey”, it is an extremely strict challenge for those wanting to prove themselves.
The challenge requires the drinker to fill the glass boot (known as Das Boot) with beer - which if you are drinking from a standard Oktoberfest boot, is approximately 3L of beer. Now drink it all without spilling any on yourself! This challenge is misleadingly tricky, the drinker usually unaware they have failed the challenge until a tsunami wave of beer hits them straight in the face.
However, we will let you in on the secret how to complete the Beer Boot Challenge and to be the champion amongst your friends.
First follow the strict guidelines to the challenge.
(if any rules are broken, the person flaunting the rule must drink again)
Das boot is designed to create an air pocket in the toe, which is what causes the sudden rush of beer towards the drinker. To avoid this:
We will be getting Boot Beer Steins back in stock soon!
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We love a good origin story here at The German Village Shop. We did a little research on where this challenge originated!
Unsurprisingly, the challenge started out remarkably like the Australian hazing ritual of drinking from a sweaty old boot. Initiation rituals of drinking from a boot started with the earliest invention of leather boots, where new initiates would have to drink from the smelliest members boot.
Medieval excavations have also found shoe-shaped pottery drinking vessels across Europe. Therefore, we can only assume that the boot drinking became either more civilised, or as a challenge outside of initiation rituals.
Not long after glass blowing made its popularity across Europe, a legend states that a war General made a bet with his soldiers. That if they won the upcoming battle, he would drink from his boot. Not wanting to go against his word after they were victorious, but also not wanting to drink from his soiled and unsanitary boot. The General decided to have a boot made by a local glassblower, and drank to their victory.
Whether or not any of this history or legend is true, the boot challenge has become an integral part of the German drinking culture, as well as popular at many Oktoberfest festivals around the world.