Ryan Coultas

Oh, Pinterest. Pinterest. Pinterest. Pinterest. Pinterest and my girlfriend are to thank for this weeks picture and project. It started when I saw that we had an empty bottle of Knob Creek Bourbon. I saved the bottle a while back and today I decided to do something with it but needed ideas. Mari Ann went right to Pinterest like a prospector to gold and found we could turn it into either a light or a torch. The light involved wiring and cutting glass so I opted for the torch. Also, it would only cost me $3 so it was nice and cheap.

All you need for this simple project is:

• An empty booze bottle (short ones are best like Disaronno, Knob Creek, etc. because the wick will reach the bottom)
• 3/4-in x 1/2-in Copper Slip Coupling Fitting
• 1/2-in Copper Slip Cap Fitting
• A wick from a standard tiki torch

Wash and remove any labels or plastic from the liquor bottle so you are left with just glass. The opening on a standard bottle should be about 1/2″ in diameter. Freeze the coupling to shrink it just a bit and then immediately fit it about half way into the opening of the bottle. Heating the glass opening will help the copper to expand faster when it touches the glass. It should just hold itself in with friction. You should not have to force the copper coupler in. Use the copper cap to snuff out the flames. A bonus addition would be to drill a hold near the bottom of the cap and tie a little bit of twine to it an the neck of the bottle to keep the parts together and enhance the look.

With this project, I heated the glass opening with my gas grill and I ended up cracking the opposite side a little so I need to heat it less and not bang it on my grill grates next time. If you want the copper to have an aged look like in the picture, throw it on a grill on high heat for a few minutes.

If you noticed, the picture is of a Disaronno bottle and not Knob Creek. After noticing that the coupler would not quite fit in the opening I thought, “I’ll heat it up and that way it will be soft and I can gingerly hammer it in.” I got the coupler really hot on on my grill (I know I need to get a torch) and started to put it in. At first it worked ok but the fit was tight. I kept seating it farther down until the side cracked and my project was spoiled. Not wanting to come up empty handed, I played musical booze and emptied our last shot of tequila into my belly and the last half of the bottle of Disaronno into the tequila bottle. Now, our liquor cabinet is booby trapped with almond flavored “tequila.”

The Illinois State Fair is in town! The traffic is terrible. The food is greasy and costs more than printer ink. The rides are operated by people you normally wouldn’t trust to park your car, let alone control your fate while locked inside a swirling, diesel powered death cage. There are ill-behaved, latchkey boys running around everywhere, doing everything they can to impress a 14 year old girl dressed like a Reno gutter skank. The sun will sizzle your skin like a smattering of sausage on a slice of Sbarro (I am not proud of the preceding sentence).

Really though, it was fine and we had a good time. I burned through nearly all of the cash I had on me but the Fair only comes around once a year I suppose. It’s not like I can just make a Jamaican beef patty or a Vose’s corn dog, or a fire roasted corn on the cob dipped in butter at home! If I dipped my corn in a vat of melted butter at home I would labeled a sociopath, and shunned by my community. Do it at the fair and I’m just simply supporting hard working Illinois farmers.

I took most of my pictures around the rides at the midway because, you know, they’re shiny. I used my super light, super cheap travel tripod and it seemed to work ok with a 2 second timer. I would prefer to work with Jesse’s Manfrotto but it is a lot heavier. I felt bad, there were a lot of very considerate people who would stop before they walked in front of the camera and I would just wave them through. Since I was taking so many long exposures it didn’t really matter. For every one idiot who sticks their face in front of the camera, there are 2 dozen more who politely walk around you and don’t want to ruin a shot. I don’t mind those odds at all.