The latest drinking game to hit town: Das Boot…

“It’s in the movie Beerfest, that’s a big cult movie,” says Andy Lewellen, co-owner of Lew’s in Waldo. “And it holds 102 ounces of beer.”

Lew’s has morphed the gigundo galoshes into a neighborhood drinking game.

“What you’re supposed to do is you have your regular drink whatever that is and this is like your little game that you play with your other friends at the table,” he says. “You pass the boot around the table and everybody sips on it throughout the night. And when it’s almost empty, whoever finishes it, the next person at the table whose turn it is has to buy everybody a round of drinks or another Das Boot.”

More formalized rules at www.bierboothaus.com describe the game thusly:

• 1. The beer boot is passed around a group with individuals taking a sip and passing to the left (unless multiple boots are in use).

• 2. Once the boot is first picked up, it cannot touch the table or be set down until empty.

• 3. Each player must flick the beer boot prior to and after taking a sip.

• 4. If you get splashed in the face, you drink again

• 5. The beer boot’s toe is to remain pointed upward and no turning of the beer boot is allowed (Allowing the toe to face sideways is for amateurs only).

• 6. If you finish the beer boot, the person before you buys the next fill or is required to fill the next “Das Boot”.

Which brings us to the cost factor…

“They cost us $52 each, including shipping,” Lewellen says. “And they go for $20 for 102 ounces of either Bud Lite or Miller Lite except on Thursday night it’s $10. But we’re starting to get Boulevard Beer drinkers too and that costs $30.”

One caveat: “You have to drink it a certain way or it will splash all over you,” Lewellen cautions. “Like if you raise the boot and the toe is pointed upward, an air bubble forms in the toe and forces the beer out all over you. So you have to make sure the toes is facing either left or right. That’s kind of the novelty of the game; that if your friend doesn’t know how to drink it, the beer spills all over him.”

Das Boot has only been in town a couple weeks but its rep is spreading fast.

“Like we sell 20 to 25 boots a night,” Lewellen says. “We actually have people call up and say they want to reserve a boot because we only have eight if ‘em. We have an order in for another 10.”

Thus far but one boot to date has gone to Boot Hill, Lewellen says.

“We have a deposit just to let people know this is an expensive piece of merchandise,” Lewellen says. “So the deposit is $60, just so people know not to walk out the door with it or something. Because if that boot’s out of commission for a week, we probably would have sold it 20 or 25 times. The boot itself is a big German tradition.”

Want a Das Boot of your own? Not a problem.

“We’ll have the boots for sale in about a month with Lew’s logo on them,” Lewellen says. “We’ve got Das Boot T-shirts coming too.”