The Reason We Banned alcohol at Barefoot Bushcraft
They say there is a story behind every rule and sign. This is one of those stories.
Years ago, before we had a no-alcohol policy at Barefoot Bushcraft, we hosted a bachelor party. Nothing unusal, we thought—just a bunch of guys coming down to shoot arrows, throw axes, it’s our specialty at Barefoot Bushcraft.
It wasn’t unusual to have Two taxis pull in. One full of cheerful men with thick Irish accents and big smiles. The other? Stuffed to the roof with beer, whisky, and enough liquid courage to power a small pub crawl. Apparently, they took the words bachelor and party very seriously.
My two staff members and I looked at eachother curiously as the four men pulled out and stacked all the cases of beer and alcohol. Surely there must be more than four guys to all this. Nope.
At first, they were friendly—chatty even. Then, the beer started disappearing. Not a beer. Not some beer. We’re talking a case each. And once the hard liquor came out, the line between fun and full-blown chaos.
The first thing they did is start endlessly swearing. Endlessly. To the point where asked them to tone it down, and we are all pretty hearty. Heck, I used to be a truck driver.
During archery, One guy decided the fake deer target needed more personality. So he wore its antlers… as a hat. Another grabbed a traffic cones marking range distances and used it like a Viking megaphone to shout poetry—or insults, it was hard to tell—at birds and trees. Over at the axe range, one of them stood spread eagle in front of the target and begged his buddy to throw.
“Hit me right in the can!” he shouted.
Spoiler alert: we didn’t let them try.
It quickly went from Bachelor Party: The Movie to Lord of the Flies: Barefoot Bushcraft edition. We stepped in, told them the party was over, and helped them call for taxis before anyone lost a toe—or worse..
But wait, it gets better.
While waiting by the roadside, we watched them start playing a new game: Push Your Buddy in Front of a Moving Car. They’d spot a vehicle coming down the road, then shove each other toward it, laughing like the drunken idiots they were. When cars honked in panic, they’d scream back through the traffic cone and continue to laugh.
At that moment, watching four grown men nearly recreate a Darwin Award ceremony on the shoulder of a quiet country road, we made the decision:
New rule: No alcohol..
So if you’ve ever wondered why Barefoot Bushcraft has a no-alcohol policy, now you know. A decade after their visit, we still talk about their visit. They left a very memorable impression on us. They have to date been the loudest, most obnoxious group we have ever entertained. To put that into perspective, we usually see tens of thousands of people every season for over a decade. These guys were the worst.
Like I always tell students: There are two ways you don’t want to leave Barefoot Bushcraft.
- You don’t want to become one of my stories
- You don’t want to be the reason I changed the rules.
These guys were both.