Crystal Head Vodka Cut Down to Size

“Oh, well, would you look at that?”

Dan Aykroyd is holding my skull in his hands. A genuine smile of surprise seems to play across the actor’s face. I admit that he’s not the first to cradle that heavy orb. His touch, though, is more gentle than that of the craftsman who had taken a saw to it a few days earlier. Right through the forehead he had cut it, a freehand slice that took the top clean off.

Finished mug

Of course, it’s not my own actual head the Ghostbusters star is holding: it’s his. Or, rather, it’s one of his brand. He was in town this weekend signing skull-shaped bottles of Crystal Head, his 80-proof Canadian vodka. The bottles are shaped like human skulls and are so solid you could bludgeon opponents with one in a bar fight. Unlike those who were snapping up bottles from the store's stock, I’d brought my own, slightly altered by a local company that does such things.

I was expecting a crowd. I was not expecting a crowd of hundreds queued up outside a San Diego grocery store, waiting for a chance to plunk down $45 (it was on sale) for a bottle. The line stretches further past a Crystal Head RV than I can make out. When I ask him about its popularity, Aykroyd says that Crystal Head had recently produced its millionth bottle. That’s a lot of glass skulls knocking around the planet.

A matronly woman buys eight. Aykroyd signs them all and poses for pictures. A younger man asks him to sign one for his brother’s upcoming 21st birthday. Done. The former Saturday Night Live comedian is all smiles and charm, working his way patiently through the line while support staff break sweats to open cases, maintain displays, and keep order. I don’t think to ask how many bottles are on hand. Hundreds, surely. A thousand? Possibly.

On the table at BottleHood

But I don’t see any others like mine. Earlier that week, I’d taken an empty Crystal Head bottle to Steve Cherry, co-founder of the San Diego company BottleHood. Cherry’s firm cuts glass bottles and fashions them into drinking vessels, lighting fixtures, candy dishes, candleholders, and even jewelry. He’s a regular at my neighborhood farmers’ market. I’d given him empty bottles before and wanted to see what he could do with one of Aykroyd’s.

His crew turned it into one of my favorite new tiki mugs.

Of the hundreds of brands of cut BottleHood sells — the jelly jars made from Dublin Dr. Pepper bottles, the Patron candy dishes, the drinking glasses of Mountain Valley water — Crystal Head is one Cherry can’t keep in stock. You want an 18-oz Crystal Head drinking vessel? You have to bring him the bottle.

Unless Aykroyd pulls up in that RV with a skid of empties.

Goes well with:

• BottleHood shows up every week at San Diego markets, so we locals are fortunate enough to browse the rotating offerings. but if you're nowhere near, check out their website. They ship. 
• Crystal Head's website.