Over the past year, Dan’s brother has started to introduce him to the wonderful world of whiskey. And throughout the summer, our nights were often spent relaxing in our backyard, drinking wine and whiskey, and burning scrap wood in a campfire. Our “perfect nights,” we’d call them. So this one pays tribute to those perfect nights, as Dan crafts his way through another fun DIY project – building a whiskey carrier.

Dan’s inspiration for this was built from a few previous projects, including one of his first – the beer caddy, and one of my projects – the wine caddy (sensing a theme here or what?). Each of these original caddies were initially built as gifts, and this one would be no different. Except for this time around, Dan would be building two simultaneously – one for his brother, and one for himself.

This project would essentially be a wooden carrying case that could hold 3 glasses and a bottle of whiskey. It’ll have a door on the front that latches, allowing it to be carried by the leather handle that will be attached to the top.

To start, Dan built out the frame. And as you can see, the deeper he got into this project, the more clamps he needed.

Once the frame was built, he added spline joints to the corners, which gave the boxes a cool design feature as well as added support.

With the boxes built, Dan then stained them with his favorite Dark Walnut, and topped them with semi-gloss poly. He added the hinges to the side and a leather strap to the top that would act as the handle.

For the inside, he divided the main section in two, with the idea of one side holding a whiskey bottle, and the other holding the three glasses. The glassware would sit on separate, stacked ledges that were held in place by rows carved into the side of the wood. A cool feature of this is that the base of each ledge is removable, and can act as a coaster for the glasses when in use. Alternatively, they can also be removed and the carrier can bring along two bottles side by side.

And with that, we have another one of Dan’s crafty projects that works as a gift to someone else and, as we’ve learned here, as a gift to yourself as well.