re: Finished my Bulleit bourbon lamp.

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I'm curious to know how you made it. 

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First and most important step. Buy a 1.75L of bourbon and drink it.

Fill the bottle with water and put the cap on. Put a piece of painters tape over where you'll drill the hole. Get some clay or plumbers putty and make a small circular levee around where you are going to drill and fill it with water. I used a straw to fill it. Drill the hole very lightly so you don't overheat the glass and break it. You can buy a 5 pack of glass drill bits at Harbor Freight and I used a drill press but I've done them before with a handheld drill. Rinse out the bottle after to get rid of the glass shards and let it dry.

Now comes the hard part. Staining the inside to give the appearance of being full of bourbon. I used a translucent oil based dye made by Pebeo called Vitrail and their lightening medium (I think it's a mixture of linseed oil or stand oil and turpentine). Bad thing is the little 1.5 ounce bottles cost 8 bucks apiece. Anyway, mix a little bit of orange and brown in about a 3 to 1 ratio and add in about the same amount of the medium. Pour in the bottle (put a piece of tape over the hole you drilled) and put the cap on and just roll the stuff around to cover the entire inside surface. Take off the cap and tape and stand it upside-down and let it drain into a mason jar for and hour or two. Get a rag and stick something into the opening and wipe away the stain from the neck by just rotating the bottle. You'll have to repeat this process several times to get the desired results. I want to find something that is thicker and dries faster to add the dye to.

After it's stained, just wire it up. I used the hardware from a couple of cheap lamps I bought at Fred's. I pulled them apart and had to re-solder the wires inside the housing.