As my liquor collection grows, and as my son gets older, and as I have more and more occasion to have other people’s kids in my home, it has begun to occur to me that my liquor should really be a little less accessible. Ideally, a locking cabinet. Nothing expensive or fancy, but not something hideous, either. Woodgrain is ideal, not metal or that white laminated stuff… but it can be fake wood. Anyway, I’m not having much luck finding stuff.
Help?
By Googling “locking liquor cabinet” I keep getting an expensive portable bar in cherry finish that locks and is hundreds of dollars.
Do you just keep your booze in the kitchen cabinets, or do you have a wet bar/bar somewhere?
Neither. I have a sort of tea cart looking thing in the dining room, and it’s all just sitting out on top of that.
Where do you store your liquor now? Some kind of cabinet or shelf?
A simple solution might be getting a locking latch for that. Hardware stores have all kinds of such locks available. Often they can replace the current latch easily. Then you can just use what you have, without worrying about placing a new cabinet, matching the wood, etc.
I keep getting the same thing as myskepticsight.
Everyone I know that bothers to lock the cabinet just puts a padlock on a regular liquor cabinet/sideboard - whatever. It doesn’t look pretty, but it does the job.
Yeah, I was fishing for the current place where the liquor resides to suggest a lock for whatever it’s in now.
I remember skimming off my parents’ liquor bottles…it’s part of growing up! Refilling the rum or vodka with water so if you look at the bottle, no one notices any is missing…ahh the good ol days!
But you should worry if you have other people’s kids in the house. My house was boring* so my parents didn’t have to worry much about that.
*my parents went to sleep early for work and we didn’t have a finished basement or anywhere to hang out where we would not disturb them
Here is how it is currently:
(and my kitchen cabinets are (A) too short for liquor bottles, (B) already full of other stuff, and © have knob-style handles, so couldn’t be locked anyway)
What you need for that corner is a flip-top bar globe. Or a drinks cabinet from Cost Plus World Market. They are easy to fit with a simple lock of your choice.
By the by…knob-type cabinets can be locked very easily, but not subtly. You just have to wrap a chain around the knobs and secure with a lock. Your kid will hate you, but it will be secure.
Have you thought about spiking some vodka with ipecac? It prevents a repeat swiping. 
Just remember which bottle you doctored.
That still doesn’t get around the fact that the cabinets are already full of other stuff, and the shelves aren’t tall enough to accomodate liquor bottles anyway.
And I wouldn’t ruin a bottle of alcohol with ipecac on the off chance that my son or one of his friends did choose to sneak booze and happen to pick that exact bottle. That would just be silly.
But even aside from the kids-getting-into-it aspect, I am not terribly thrilled with having all the booze out on display anyway. It could very easily give the wrong impression to people who came over, to see a bunch of liquor just out like that. And like I said, kitchen cabinets are not an option. And I don’t have any other existing furniture that has doors on it. So I need to buy a new thing.
Then a drinks cabinet is your best bet.
Alas, ipecac is a brown liquid, and has a distinctive odor. I certainly wouldn’t drink the brown vodka with the funny smell. Hiding it in something like Jaegermeister would probably work, though.
Anybody who drinks Jaeger deserves whatever happens to them.
You could probably get a wardrobe from Ikea or even the thrift store/classifieds/Craigslist and fit it with a lock.
Hey, I happen to like Jaeger (along with most other herbal liqueurs). It’s excellent when sipped slowly from a cordial glass after a filling meal.
Jaeger is distinguishable from Ipecac?
This guy apparantly used an IKEA “Billy” style glass-doored cabinet. Well, two, actually, but he’s a bit more of a boozehound than you. I see no reason you can’t just go out and find a correctly sized two-doored cabinet at any old furniture store. Odds are it won’t come with a lock, but any reasonably skilled craftsmen should be able to drill a hole in one door to put in a rotary latch and not make it look out of place or damage the exterior. Not exactly secure enough to lock up the crown jewels, but if anyone breaks into it, you’ll know and can dish out the punishment.
And only now do I see I was beaten to the punch. :smack:
After my sister recent “ruin your life through alcohol” I’m thinking about similar since my kids are only a few years from “that age.” I’m actually thinking “modified gun cabinet.”