Proposing with an alligator

February 13, 2016 8:00 AM

I am planning on proposing to my love soon, and have acquired a rather expensive out-of-distribution bottle of whisky as my ring(!) I was thinking of making my own custom take of the label...

Should I soak the real label off and replace it, or is this sacrilege? I suspect my darling will want to drink it at some point. Or shall I just mock up the box it comes in/make some sort of jacket for the bottle? I don't want to offend the whisky gods but I want it to look damn good.

Also, if you have any ideas on how to wield a whisky bottle in a ring like matter, I'm all ears.

posted by teststrip to Food & Drink (5 answers total)

Best answer: I would mock up a new box or jacket for the bottle--not out of whiskey preservation (although, personally, were I to receive such a thing, I would prefer it not be altered and that personalization be done on a thing that was not the actual whiskey label itself, YMMV) but simply because there's a greater margin of error.

It's going to be hard to handle a bottle of whiskey like a ring box--it being so much larger. But you could make a label for a dram bottle, which is smaller, and fill the dram bottle and then present the remainder of the bottle later. Whiskey stays perfect in its bottle after opening. So, that's what I'd do. Pour a little into a dram bottle, making a fancy label for it, put the dram bottle in a velvet box. Present it and hand over the rest of the bottle later.

Masters of Malt does dram bottles, for reference--random choice, scroll down to see what the dram bottle looks like. Amazon sells them.
posted by crush-onastick at 8:13 AM on February 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

Best answer: OK.... I love, love, love this idea. And also love crush-onastick's idea about getting a smaller bottle for presentation. I would photoshop (OK, get a friend to "help me" photoshop) a replica of the original label and add your sweet customizations. Keep the original in its original box. Have it sitting out with some fancy glassware for whenever you get home.

Alternatively / in addition to the mini-bottle, if you're not completely opposed to a ring (in addition to the whiskey, which again, I love love love) you can get one made out of old whiskey barrels.
posted by ista at 8:31 AM on February 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Sacrilege to soak off the label. Just sacrilege. I cringe.

Many special edition whisky bottles come in wooden boxes/cases. The Highland Park special editions have unique wooden cases also. If you're not handy with wood yourself, I would make a solid bet there are woodworkers in your city who may be interested in doing a commissioned box for you. You could have something hand-burned onto it or look into laser-burning. You could also get a plain box and get a custom-engraved plate to affix to the front.

And then put whatever you want on it. If the whisky has a custom insignia/logo as some do, I'd include that and the name/year/details of the whisky, with Special Engagement Edition in significant sized font, and your proposal beneath that.

There you go, custom keepsake.

Then however you do this, you'll know how to do another one, and you can give him another bottle with box for the wedding.

We have an engagement whisky, Talisker 57. We got engaged while on a trip to the Isle of Sky and had visited Talisker just that morning.
posted by lizbunny at 10:33 AM on February 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: All three of you are so very wise! Love the dram idea - great way to make it into a ring. I also promise not to touch the real label

(In case you are interested it's a bottle of Aardbeg Alligator.)
posted by teststrip at 2:01 AM on February 14, 2016

ista gave me an idea--so a friend of mine makes etched glassware, and says it's very easy. There are lots of tutorials online. She has a vinyl cricut machine, so she can do fancy stickers, but I've seen it done with normal stickers you can get at craft stores and masking tape (example tutorial here). You just need to be careful with the etching chemicals. And it would be a nice keepsake! Maybe you could etch some glasses with a picture of a ring, or a ring around the glass, or the question onto the glass, or a picture of a ring onto a dram bottle in a box, or...

(Congratulations!)
posted by spelunkingplato at 6:55 AM on February 15, 2016