Win, Win, Wine

Okay, I admit it. . .I'm a wino. Not only do I enjoy wine, especially the reds, I love the ambiance of wine cellars and the delicate look of wine glasses. To me, there is just something rich and decadent about wine "stuff”. While visiting my mother not so long ago, she showed me a NapaStyle catalog she received in the mail. There were some beautiful wine bottle hurricanes on one of the pages (you can view these at napastyle.com). Instantly, I fell in love. There were several different shapes, sizes and colors of wine bottles. But they ranged in price from $99 to $250 (and you don't even get to drink the wine that was in them. . .can you believe that? Empty wine bottles!). YIKES!!!!! So I thought to myself, basically these are just wine bottles with the bottoms cut off. Why couldn't I take some wine bottles to my local glass shop and see if they would be willing to cut and grind the bottoms off? My local glass shop was more than willing to give it a try, but couldn't guarantee the results. What did care? I already got to drink the wine and would normally have just recycled the bottles anyway.

Well, they turned out perfect and only cost me $10! WIN, WIN! This rocks! Not only did I get to drink the wine, but now I have some awesome, cheap wine bottle hurricanes to light up my bar area!!! I better get busy emptying some more bottles. . .hiccup.

Note: the wine bottle shown in the picture is a magnum, but you could do this with any size bottle. My glass cutting guy told me he would only charge $5 for the smaller bottles. I used a votive candle to protect my table, but pillars are really more attractive, just be sure you protect the surface underneath somehow. You may want to ask local restaurants/taverns if they have any wine bottles they would be willing to give away. . .they probably just recycle them anyway.