Five-time world champion Eric Bristow was renowned for his talent in darts, but he was also notorious as one of the biggest drinkers on tour. And as the 2026 PDC World Darts Championship enters its business phases, fans are reminded of one particularly heavy session.

Bristow, who died following a heart attack while attending a Premier League event in April 2018, dominated darts for much of the early 1980s. He won his five world titles under the BDO banner, where he also finished as runner-up on five occasions, making more appearances in the final (10) than any other player. ‘The Crafty Cockney’ was part of a darts generation fabled for its drinking habits. And a particularly heavy 72-hour session with Cliff Lazarenko once saw the duo drain a plane of its champagne supply.

The English icons were on their way across the Atlantic for a stop at the Canadian Open when things got slightly out of hand. Bristow recalled the antics in his 2008 autobiography, ‘Eric Bristow: The Crafty Cockney’, the details of which are enough to make even the reader feel queasy.

“Cliff caught me on my way to the Canadian Open with him,” he wrote. “We’d been upgraded to first class, sitting in luxury for the 12-hour flight, and the champagne came out.

“I already knew I was going to be in a bit of trouble because we’d had four or five pints in the airport bar. But off we went and it was champagne, champagne, champagne.

“Then we got the meal and there was more champagne, champagne, champagne, then they ran out. We’d gone through all 12 bottles on board.”

It doesn’t take a mathematician to calculate that works out as six bottles apiece if it were just the duo drinking them. But then the details are bound to become somewhat foggy when consuming on such a scale.

The story continued: “So Cliff starts ordering drink after drink after drink. Cointreau, Bailey’s on ice, then Southern Comfort. All I could think when the plane touched down was how the hell was I going to get through customs, because I was smashed.

“I was in the toilet splashing my face with cold water in a desperate bid to sober up. I was seeing double and when I said goodbye to the stewardess the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. Fortunately, I managed to get through customs.”

The bar crawl continued despite the fact Bristow said he was “having trouble standing up” and “didn’t know what day it was” or “what country we were in.” The result was the Crafty Cockney not being able to get out of bed for the next 36 hours, so severe was his hangover.

Bristow, who never left the house without £1,000 in cash, and Lazarenko each made it to the final of the Canadian Open on separate occasions but never won the tournament outright. And it’s little wonder as to why if their drinking en route was any indicator as to what to expect at the oche.