this is life in austin

While camping this past weekend, a friend from Vermont introduced us to a game he calls Polish Horseshoes. A google search revealed that “polish horseshoes” apparently has something to do with washers … which are cool and all, but not an awesome new game I wanted to share with y’all.

For lack of a better name, we’ll keep calling it Polish Horseshoes, though it appears to bear no connection to Poland or horseshoes. You need two empty glass beer bottles, two ski poles, and a frisbee. Stick the ski poles in the dirt twenty to thirty feet apart and place the beer bottles on top (balancing them can be a challenge).

The object is to knock the beer bottle off of the top of the ski pole by hitting it with the frisbee. Three points are awarded for hitting the beer bottle, two for hitting the ski pole and causing the beer bottle to fall off.

Scoring: the receiving team can negate points by catching the frisbee or beer bottle. So if a frisbee hits a beer bottle (3 points) but the receiving team catches it, the throwing team only receives 2 points. If the receiving team catches the beer bottle and the frisbee, the throwing team only gets 1 point. Also, the receiving team MUST CATCH the frisbee, or the throwing team is awarded 1 point. Play to 11 points.

The catch: You must hold a beer/beverage in your hand at all times. Makes it much harder to catch that frisbee or beer bottle!

This is a GREAT camping game, but also good for backyards, barbecues, days in the park. The only trick is finding some ski poles … or a friend from Vermont.

UPDATE: Apparently, PVC pipes work just as well as ski poles! It seems like they’d make the bottle more stable, making it harder to knock off, but really, if you’re getting the frisbee anywhere close it’s probably not an issue anyway. Yay for a Texas-friendly solution!