Dreidel spin-off and adult beverages in Brooklyn and Austin

NEW YORK (FOX5NY.COM) - If you thought dreidel spinning was just a game that families play during Hanukkah, you are mistaken. At Full Circle Bar in Brooklyn, it's taken very seriously by Jews and gentiles alike.

"I'm not as familiar with the culture and the religion so it's nice to kind of have an introductory point to learning more about it," Sarah Oehrlein said.

"I've been spinning a dreidel ever since I was a little kid," Justin Braunschweiger said. "Going to Hebrew school and everything like that so when I heard it was actually a major league dreidel competition, I had to come down and check it out."

Full Circle Bar has two locations, one in Williamsburg and another in Austin, Texas. On Friday night, the fourth night of Hanukkah, spinners gathered at both bars to try their hand at dreidel.

The bar's owner, Eric Pavony, told us he came up with the idea for his Major League Dreidel organization at a family Hanukkah party in 2006.

"That was the year we were drinking a lot of vodka and eating a lot of latkes and I decided no one spins a dreidel anymore," Pavony said. "It's kind of just become an icon but not really a fun game and I said you know what I'm going to put a modern fun spin on this thing."

Since then, he has held competitions all over the country and he calls himself the knish-ioner. On Friday, each bar crowned a winner—whoever's dreidel spins for the longest inside of the so-called spin-agogue.

Afterward, the winner from this bar and the winner from the bar in Austin had a spin-off of their own through a live video stream. The winner of that championship was named America's Top Dreidel Spinner. The winner also got a $180 gift card to an online Judaica store.