Question about leakage

[savagehenry]

I just received a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle 23, 2004 bottling. It is unopened. With no effort I am able to spin both the foil and cork around. Some of the bourbon has leaked out and is seeping from under the foil. Has anyone experienced this with this particular product or any other bourbon? Any help is greatly appreciated.

[savagehenry]

Correction - the cork does not spin freely, just the foil.

[mrviognier]

That's really not an issue...if you're worried about the contents. Foils are usually hand-placed on top of the bottle and then sent through a machine called a spinner. It's the spinner's job to flatten the foil against the bottle. What you have their is the result of a foil spinner that needs to be adjusted.

A foil serves no qualitative purpose...it's there for aesthetics. You're whiskey is fine.

[savagehenry]

Thank you for the info. I wasn't concerned about the spinning foil as much as the seepage under it.

[TradingBoiler]

I had some issue with this when buying a Pappy 15 once. I had continued shopping for another bottle and realized the bottle I was holding was leaking. Just happens sometimes on the hand sealed bottles.

[c2walker]

The only bottle I've ever had leak on me was VWFRR. Fortunately the contents still tasted great.

[mrviognier]

Unlike bottled wine, most whiskey is bottled & corked without the benefit of pulling a vacuum...in other words, there is air still present within the bottle before the cork goes in. As a result, if the bottle is subjected to a even slightly warmer environment, some seepage can occur. Wine bottles can exhibit seepage, too...but the temperature needs to be a lot hotter.

Luckily, warmer temperatures do not affect the quality of the whiskey. It's far less sensitive to this than wine.

[pepcycle]

The answer its "Depends"

(Whenever the question is leakage)