Creative Time Killing 101

I went in to work last Sunday at 1:00 p.m. There were no parties going on and the Detroit Lions game didn’t start until 4:00 p.m……..so I had some time to kill. You can always spend the time cleaning this or that, but I was getting bored with cleaning, so I started looking around for a new project.

Aha! Above the liquor bottles on the back bar, is a space about 18 inches high, that runs along the entire length of the back bar. There are boards that dissect this space, that are placed at 45 degree angles, so you have a series of triangular spaces. In the upside down triangles, (or “V’s”) we store wine bottles…in the triangles with the flat bottoms, we have displays of glasses and old liquor bottles. Well, I got tired of looking at these displays, which to me seemed like afterthoughts of how to fill the space.

My original idea was to use these flat bottomed triangles as more wine storage, since we have way too many wine bottles sitting around…however, the wine bottles didn’t fit in there very well, since the space was a couple of inches too wide….tried shoving a piece of plastic tubing in there as a spacer….but when I took down one bottle, the rest shifted, sent one flying towards me…oh shit!….I was fortunate in that when it landed on the liquor bottles, nothing broke.

Okay, on to Plan B. I decided to make drink displays….of drinks we actually serve. I took down the old empty bottle of Japanese whiskey (which we will never have again) emptied out all the glasses that were collecting dust and started from scratch.

One cubby has some Kahlua and Bailey’s and a few glasses we serve coffee drinks in. Another has a bottle of Amaretto, Cointreau and Grand Marnier, a snifter and a couple of small rock glasses. And then there’s the Martini display and the sangria display.

Now it’s Monday, Halloween, and one of the deadest nights of the year. As I am staring up at my displays, I realize something is missing….the glasses would look much better if there was something in them. Getting carried away? Maybe. But I was having fun. I brewed some tea…used weak tea for a light amber tequila in a shot glass, water for clear tequila, added a salt shaker and a lemon. Moved on to the after dinner drink display, used stronger tea for Amaretto in a snifter….then decided it would look cool if I had Amaretto on the rocks. For the ice? Crumpled up cellophane.

Next was the coffee drink display…..used some coffee, put cellophane over the rim of the glass and topped it off with whipped cream made of cotton balls. For the Appletini and Razzbatini…colored water. For the cherry….I grabbed a plastic red grape I had sitting around the house. Still looking for fake fruit for the Sangria display.

Next time I decide to change the displays, we’ll call it “Creative Time Killing 102.” (Hey! There are worse ways to kill time!)