Forget the queue, the corkage and the two-hour wait for a table you didn’t love anyway. Some of the best nights out are happening on the good rug, with the phones face-down and something excellent in the glass. Here’s your kit for the kind of evening that starts as “just a quick game” and ends, three rounds and one very heated debate later, with someone insisting on best of five in your own lounge room.
The Games
Five Crowns – $19
The gateway game of the group. It’s rummy, but with a fifth suit (jokers) and a wicked little twist: the wild card changes every hand. Threes are wild when you’re dealt three cards, fours when you’re dealt four, and on it climbs until — say it with us the game isn’t over ’til the Kings go wild. It teaches itself in a single round, welcomes anyone from six to sixty, and stretches happily to a full table of seven. Deceptively gentle, quietly ruthless, and almost impossible to play just once. The one you reach for while everyone’s still arriving and no one’s committed to anything harder.
Flip 7 – With a Vengeance – $17
The one that’s earned every scrap of its hype. This little push-your-luck card game has been the runaway obsession of the last couple of years, and one round tells you exactly why. The premise is almost insultingly simple: flip number cards, collect as many different ones as you can, and bank your points before greed gets you. Flip a number you already have and you bust, zero, nothing, out for the round, thanks for playing. Land seven unique cards, though, and you “Flip 7” for a fat 15-point bonus and instant bragging rights.
“With a vengeance” has attitude. It’s punchy, a little combative, slightly gleeful. And that happens to be the exact spirit of the game: busting, sabotage, greed, one-more-card. Throw in the odd Freeze, Flip Three and Second Chance to sabotage your nearest and dearest, and you’ve got a game that turns “I’ll just take one more” into a personality flaw. First to 200 wins; nobody stops at one game.
Wavelength – $59
The one that gets deliciously personal. One player becomes the “psychic,” draws a card with a spectrum: hot to cold, overrated to underrated, harmless to villainous and has to nudge their team toward a hidden point on the dial using a single clue. Cue passionate arguments about whether pineapple on pizza is a “3” or an “8,” and the slow, dawning realisation that you do not know your friends as well as you thought. It’s a telepathy experiment disguised as a party game, it plays in under half an hour, and it will out you as either a beautiful mind or a menace. Bring it out once the room is warm and ready for laughs, and sighs as teams realise they know nothing about each other.
The Pours
Seven Seasons Green Ant Gin – $99
Yes, ants. Stay with us. This is one of the most genuinely Australian things you can put in a glass. A collaboration built around green ants hand-harvested in the Northern Territory by the Motlop family of the Larrakia people, founded by proud Larrakia man Daniel Motlop. The ants bring a bright citrus-and-coriander zing that plays gorgeously against native botanicals like finger lime, lemon myrtle, pepper berry, strawberry gum and boobialla (that’s native juniper to you). There’s a pinch of the little legends in every bottle, too, so the conversation writes itself. Pour it into a martini with a twist of lemon, or a crisp tonic, and let it do the talking. A bottle guaranteed to derail the game for a solid ten minutes while everyone inspects the label.
The GlenDronach – $118
When the games wind down and the debrief begins, this is the glass you want in your hand. A Highland single malt that’s been flying the flag for sherry-cask maturation since 1826, GlenDronach is all Oloroso and Pedro Ximénez richness — think dried figs, raisins, dark chocolate, a curl of warm spice and a finish that lingers like a good story. The 12 Year Old is the perfect way in: deep amber, unhurried, made for slow sipping by whatever passes for a fire in your place. Not one to rush, and not one to share too widely. A sherried, contemplative full stop on the evening.
The Verdict
Stack the games from lightest to loudest, keep the gin cold and the whisky within reach, and you’ve got the blueprint for a night that beats a booking every time. The only real risk is that nobody wants to go home.