10 Insane Ways to Drink a Shot

When bored drinkers look for exciting new experiences, they typically scour the globe for weird new liquors or invent a new, dangerous drinking game. Rarely do they pay any mind to changing up their drinkware—but, it turns out that’s the key to a entire realm of drinking experimentation. Consider the humble shot glass and you’ll see that there are many more interesting options from which to shoot your booze. Here, the 10 most extreme ways to throw one back.

Bone Luge

Back in 2012—before activated charcoal, turmeric and Salt Bae took over the internet—the bone luge was the indulgent food trend of the moment. After scraping a bone nearly clean, you can extract those last, immovable bits of fatty, buttery marrow by drinking your shot of choice through half-pipe-esque bone, combining booze and marrow in one glutinous gulp. The trend first took off in Portland and become popular enough to grab Anthony Bourdain’s attention before crashing into critical contempt. The genius of the bone luge is its adaptability, as many spirits take well to the fatty leftovers, from bright acidic sherries to caramel-flecked bourbons. Plus, you can DIY the shot at any restaurant that serves bone marrow—just don’t let the waiter see you.

Crab Shot

Treasure chests of pirate rum aren’t the only boozy gifts from the sea. Unsatisfied by the bone luge, the intrepid drinkers at Putney Farms took to the sea to create a crustacean funnel shot—served through the hull of a dungeness crab. But swapping the marrow bone for a crab shell also required a drink worthy of the scuttering critter, so the group concocted a rich crab stock, which they then combined with Amontillado sherry, Amaro CioCiaro, egg and sugar to make a flip—it really does turn the whole idea of a shot on its head (sorry).

Ice Cream Luge

On the sweet end of the luge spectrum lies the ice cream luge, because every food is even better in ice cream form (see: Choco Tacos). Invented by bartender Eddie Kim of Room 11 in Washington, D.C., the luge consists of a shot drunk through the center of an ice cream sandwich. The initial late-night, off-menu luge featured mint chocolate chip ice cream and Amaro Meletti, but when the treat migrated to Pop’s SeaBar, where Kim consulted on the drink menu, customers gained the option to choose what spirit they want poured through the luge. There are plenty of ice cream and booze flavor combos we’re dying to try this with. Bibs are highly suggested.

Sourtoe

In the glacier strewn wastes of the northern Yukon territory of Canada, drinkers have had to get creative with their extracurricular activities. Enter the frostbitten, severed human toe. At Downtown Hotel’s Sourdough Saloon in Dawson City, adventurous sipsters can opt to have a mummified toe that’s preserved in salt plopped into a shot of whiskey. If you have an extra $2,500 laying around, feel free suck down the sour toe along with the liquor. Either way, as the bar quips, “You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow, but your lips must touch the toe.”

Layback

Like the trust fall of the drinking world, the layback requires you trust a bartender enough to pour a shot directly into your open gullet as you lean your head back to accept the drink upside down. However, the practice has sparked a bit of a debate among bartenders after King Cocktail Dale DeGroff came out against its practice in public bars. While we can’t condone the wild, bullish, messy layback shots performed at crowded clubs, even DeGroff admits a private layback among friends is nothing to scoff at.

Eggermeister

As you may have guessed, the Eggermeister’s name is a portmanteau of egg and Jägermeister. It’s made of a pickled egg that is sometimes soaked in Jägermeister, sometimes combined with Jäger in a glass—sometimes both. If you decide to brave the Eggermeister, we recommend enhancing the pungent experience by cutting off the top of the pickled egg, removing the yolk and replacing it with even more Jäger.

T Wolfing

Know anyone with adamantium dental work? This is the move for them. Rather than shotgun a beer by puncturing the can with a knife or bottle opener, a raging drinker can T Wolf—as in Teen Wolf—the can by biting into it. And they say candy will ruin your teeth. Turns out, the move is just one of many animal-inspired moves frat guys use while drinking.

Shoot the Boot

Rugby is a backwards sport. Players charge into one another and pile up with nary a cap to protect them, so you know they’ve got a screwed up sense of risk and reward. Exhibit A: The tradition of shooting the boot, in which a player “earns” a pint of beer poured through their soiled cleat after scoring his or her first career try (that’s like a touchdown). Shooting the boot is also used as a punishment among rugby players for messing up a solo in a drinking song.

Tarantula Cocktail

Living in Cambodia, one acquires many tastes, most notably prahok, a pungent fish paste that’s integral to Khmer cuisine. One taste we could never quite wrap our palates around, though, is a shot of tarantula. No, we don’t mean tarantula venom or some pureed legs—we mean spider entrails freshly yanked from the fuzzy, yet terrifying arachnid right before the whole thing goes in a shot glass with a bit of rice wine and jackfruit.

Skull Cup

A number of barbarous peoples of old are (usually inaccurately) rumored to have drunk from human skulls, either for ritual purposes or as a celebration of victory over enemies. But the gory drinkware isn’t reserved for ancient history. As recently as the 19th century, Lord Byron had a foraged skull turned into a cup for claret to be passed around his club, the Order of the Skull. He even wrote a poem about it, called “Lines Inscribed Upon a Cup Formed from a Skull.” How romantic.