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Bottle 582 - Walnut in a Bottle
Date Added: 20 November 2007

This is an actual walnut that was grown in a bottle. It has grown to a size that makes it impossible to remove from the bottle. The story of this bottle as related by the artist goes as follows: "I'll tell you how the walnut got in the bottle by telling you a cute story, (true story). I had given one of those bottles to my barber and soon after he had several stories to tell me, the funniest was some time ago he had a middle aged mechanical engineer in for a hair cut from a local company, (probably highly paid too!), and he was trying to figure out how the walnut got in the bottle!, he said- the guy probably cut the bottle carefully on the seam, then glued it back together!, the barber said no, that’s not right, then the engineer said he probably cut the walnut carefully in little pieces and glued them back together inside, the barber said-"nope, wrong again!, the barber just let him go on and on and left him in the dark, until a 10 year old boy walked over to them looked at the bottle and said -"It probably grew in there!", and he was right! We had 2 walnut trees on our property at the time, I had heard of how over in Europe some rare wines had fruit inside the bottle to enhance the flavor and to make them a novelty item also, and I thought "why not try it with walnuts!, so I saved all the wine cooler bottles we collected, small clear bottles and had a case of 32 saved, then at the beginning of the summer when the walnuts where small I'd go out each day and test the size until the walnut just barely fit inside the bottle, I then tied fishing line to the bottles neck and tied each one to a branch, trying to make sure that when it gets windy none of the bottles would bang into each other. What I didn't realize that was when it rained, the rain would follow the branch and fill up the bottle with water, so every time after it rained I would have to go outside and tilt up the bottles to empty them. I lost a lot of bottles because I'd tilt them up to far and snap the branch off, I lost several also because of the shell coming off to messy, but of the ones that the shell came off cleanly I'd pry the shell pieces out with long tweezers and let dry for a period of time then put a small brush on the end of a wire and coated the walnut with shellac to try and slow down the rotting process. I remember my neighbor coming over to ask what I was doing with a walnut tree covered with bottles I told him what I was doing and I remember him having a glazed look on his face! Out of the case of 32 bottles on the tree I got only 6 that worked out, but I was still happy, because it worked!, and some of them are still around!, but I made the mistake of giving them all away and we don't live there anymore, but they made unique gifts!"
Type: Walnut Grown in a Bottle   Maker's Name: Stoltzfus, Kevin
Category: Whimsey   Made Where: Lancaster, PA
Bottle Size:   Year Made: 1980's
Bottle Type: Wine Cooler  

Links to Additional Information

Kevin Stoltfus, Artist Page


Other Bottles by this Artist
Click on a picture to view the bottle


Bottle ID: 533

Bottle ID: 534

Bottle ID: 581

Bottle ID: 718

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