A Whiskey Display to Make You Proud

Boy, I do a lot of projects for friends, and this is no exception. A close friend saw the Barrel Stave Whiskey Shelf (link here) and asked If I could make him a Whisky Display to complement his dinning room sideboard. Currently his whiskeys are jumbled up and he wanted a place to organize and display and easily access them.

And follow this link to my Video to see how it is done. VIDEO LINK

Tools and Materials

Materials are straight forward. You will need about 3.5 Board Feet of lumber. I chose Cherry with some figure to add a bit of interest. Tools are minimal – If you are using S4S lumber (surfaced four sides) from a big box store you need capability to crosscut and rip to size.

Author with Materials for Whiskey Display to Make You Proud

Material Prep and Cutting

I you are using raw lumber you will need to prep it with a Jointer and Thickness Planer. My material was S2S (surfaced two sides) which means I started my material prep with jointing the edges.

Jointing wood for Whiskey Display to Make You Proud

Once I had the edges squared up I cross cut the cherry to 36”

Crosscutting material for Whiskey Display

Then Ripped two 4” wide pieces for the shelves and ripped the two back pieces.

If you are following along, at this point you should have 2 shelves, 1 upper back and 1 lower back. Next you will need to create the two sides which are just “steps” to carry the shelves.

Finally, you need to cut the upper and lower backs to length. These parts are not needed if you want the whiskey display to be open.

At this point you should do a quick dry fit to make sure everything fits properly. Just stack and clamp the parts in their relative position and look for potential issues. I did mine with several bottles just to check the fit.

Sanding

Sanding is a quick operation. If you are using S4S lumber then hit it with 220 grit and you should be good. I would suggest that after your first sanding dampen the surface, let it dry and then sand a second time. Wetting the surface will raise the grain so the second time you sand you will achieve a smoother surface.

In my case there were a few burn marks on the cut edges that needed to be sanded out.

Assembly

Assembly is nothing more than a glue and clamp. As I used 4/4 (1”) material I had a lot of surface area so I did not use mechanical fasteners.

Finishing

You have many choices in finishing. With Cherry it will, over time, naturally darken. But, I started with a Minwax Pecan stain just to tone down the red color.

For a protective coating I used 3 applications of hand rubbed Boiled Linseed Oil. I chose BLO because this really should not be exposed. Then I finished it with a couple of coats of Johnson’s Paste Wax. Over the coming years the sunlight and paste wax will give a deep rich finish.

Closing and congratulations

Wahoo – you are done!! This is a Whiskey Display to make you proud and something you can brag about every time you have friends show up for a glass of whiskey.