Nice costume. It was my first fest,also. I came from San Jose Ca so you just beat me out on that one. Love the hail storm and all the storms on Friday. Stayed at the Crowne Plaza across the street. Would certainly do it all over again in Louisville. Will told me there would be a fest in San Francisco next year I guess we will wait and hope. I love your white Russian, hard to make? It was pretty cool at the fest only charging $5.00 for a Caucasion. Well Adide Dude and take er' easy.
i stayed there as well. hell of a convenience to be right across the street. that storm was nuts, but fun to experience weather like that. and yeah, the $5 non-collusion white russian was a nice bonus! haha
prop info below in my answer to Kovnyn
I need a white Russian prop for my Lebowski mash up. How did you make it (if you did, in fact, make it), or where can I get one?
it took me 8 months of off & on work to figure out due to all sorts of snags i kept hitting, and then trying something different. overall, though, once i figured it out it's super simple to do, and relatively cheap to mass-produce but initial cost for everything will run you about $20+.
what you need...
- a decent sized candle of a creamy white color, a brown candle and a white candle
- acrylic ice cube props (found on Amazon)
- a "pizza saver" plastic insert -- these are the white plastic things they put in pizza boxes to keep the pizza from sticking to the lid
- one or more pieces of desired cocktail glassware
- optional: coffee scented essential oil
I used a crockpot to melt my wax. since i bought pillar candles, i shaved off chunks using an old screwdriver. i also used a brown and a white candle to try to get the right color (part of the trial and error work i went through!). depending on the type of wax and shades of colors, you probably want a 5:1 ratio of white to brown. it's better just to find a creamy brown color, but most of those will be scented candles and cost you 5x more than cheap unscented wax candles. if you get scented ones, try to get something that will be appealing to carry around, optionally smelling like Kahlua (coffee). you can also use an essential oil, preferably ones used for candle making, to add some aroma to the wax when melting it. you just want to use a couple of drops, maybe 3 or 4 if you are doing several props.
when melting the wax, don't do it directly in the crockpot. use a separate container, like a restaurant take-out soup container (also sold on Amazon and i had plenty that i bought for my food projects). put a loose layer of foil in the bottom of the crockpot so that the plastic container doesn't melt from the hot surface of the crockpot. keeping it loose will keep the heat conductivity low, but keep the crockpot covered to retain the ambient heat. alternatively, you can buy a cheap saucepan at a thrift store just to use for this and do it on the stove top. melt the wax on LOW heat.
take a pizza saver and do a test of how high it sets within the glass. set at least one ice cube on top of it to get an idea of where the final levels will be. typically, you want at least 1/2" space between the lip of the lass and the top of the drink to look more realistic since people don't pour drinks to the rim. the lower you have it, the more it looks like it's been partially consumed, but you also want it to look full enough that people know what it is. i usually try to fill mine around 3/4 full. with the ice cubes in, you'll want your fill like to be high enough that the ice will look like it's just slightly poking out from it, definitely not protruding too much. if you need or want to adjust the height, trim off length of the pizza saver's "legs" to get the right height. if it's sitting TOO low, you can always layer some wax, let it cool, then set the saver on the cooled wax and continue to fill.
before pouring into a cocktail glass, be sure to check on the final color of the wax if you are mixing two waxes for the color. pour a liberal amount into a small container and let it set. if the color is good, fill an empty glass about 1/4 full then place the pizza saver in the wax. there's going to be a lot of room before your final fill level -- and this is the important part! -- you'll be doing this in layers so don't worry too much about covering up the pizza saver completely on this pass.
the one thing i learned the hard way is that wax sucks to work with for props. it'll pucker when cooling if it's touching anything that is cooler than it is since it'll start hardening first on those surfaces. it's also common to get nasty sinkholes during the cooling, especially if you try to cool it in a fridge. layering was the best way i found to counteract this, so you have to be super-patient. after the initial fill, attach your ice cubes to the pizza saver, likely just 2 or 3, using a hot glue gun. i tried other methods, but white glue melts from the heated wax, superglue willl screw up the ice cubes in case you ever want to use them again, and i even tried caulk (which wasn't as successful as i hoped). you'll want plenty of space between the cubes for the wax to get into as you pour it, otherwise you end up trying to backfill empty spaces, which isn't as easy as it sounds (a small basting tool helps for that, but still better not to go that route as i learned. haha!)
after the initial pour is cooled completely, pour just a small amount in. you'll want enough to completely cover the previous pour and fill in any sink holes as well. at this point, you'll really start to notice how the wax reacts to the colder glass and ice cubes and how the wax's surface tension starts to work against you as it's cooling quickly against those surfaces. let that cool completely as well. repeat the process for another few layers until you reach the desired height. i also recommend buying a small kitchen funnel to help with the pouring. you'll be able to aim it where you need it and have a bit more control with splashes and such. just be sure to clean our the wax in its tip between pours since it'll bluild up a blockage if you let it. don't worry too much if you get wax on weird places like the rim of the glass or splattered on the ice cubes. more on that in a minute...
in the end, you'll likely do about 5+ layers, depending on how nicely the wax is working for you and how high your final level is going to be. the final layer is the hardest i found, since you'll want a level pour and nothing that is going to pucker too much against the sides of the glass.
the nice thing with wax is that it can be melted back down, which is why you shouldn't worry about wax getting spilled during your pours. once you're done, use a toothpick to scrape off excess wax from areas, including the tops of ice cubes as needed. try not to gouge the wax too much, but there's a way to fix those scraped-edge areas. use a hairdryer (not a heat gun!). run it on high and try to get direct heat on the areas that need smoothing out. don't let the wax melt too much; you'll want it just to the point where it starts to liquify. if you heat an area too much, you risk melting a lot of wax around the area, which then risks puckering issues.
once it's all done and fully cooled, use a soft rag and polish the glass as it likely has some waxy residue on the outside from all the work, as well as along the upper rim. depending on the glassware you used, it's possible that the wax can be loosened by twisting or just jostling around during travels and pop out. if this happens, it gives you a good opportunity for polishing the rest of the glass. i don't mind the loose prop myself just for cleaning purposes, but if you want to avoid any damage to the wax when transporting it, you can always try to re-set it in the glass using a hairdryer. blow hot air on the bottom of the prop until it JUST starts to "sweat" and then put it in the glassware. the seal won't be super strong, but it'll hold until it comes loose again.
do NOT heat the glass directly or you run the chance of melting too much wax and having air bubbles and other issues. wax is weird with how quickly it can go from solid to liquid without much of an in-between state. also, once it's heated to a melting point, it will start melting wax around the liquid wax due to its own heat and you can end up with a chain reaction of having more wax melted than you planned. finally, do NOT heat the glass in a microwave. most bar glassware isn't microwave safe and will shatter, as i found out the hard way when trying to remove wax from one of my test pours.
