Cracked (again...)

[gothbat]

Well, my original post about cracked bottles is locked because of it's age so I guess I'll start another. Long story short, a bottle I have has a fine (1" - 1.5") crack in the middle of it. I doubt it's possible but after much inspection it doesn't look like the crack goes all the way through the thickness of the glass but assuming it does go all the way through I was wondering what I should do because I didn't want to open this one for a while. Would it make a difference if I opened it now and poured it through a coffee filter (would this even get the small particles out of it?) or if I opened the bottle sometime down the road and filtered then (assuming the crack doesn't get bigger, it shouldn't)? If it makes any difference, the crack is above the fill level of the bourbon. Maybe I'll add a pic when I get home but I couldn't get a good one to take last night. As with last time, any input would be appreciated!

[BourbonJoe]

For whatever its worth, the coffee filter will filter out even the tiny pieces of glass, should there be any present.

Joe :usflag:

[bluesbassdad]

gb,

You'll get better opinions than mine, but I have some time on my hands right now.

I see three issues.

• The possibility of glass fragments in the bourbon and what to do about them.
  
• The possibility of flavor contaminents entering the bourbon in the future. (If that's already happened, then there's nothing to do about it.)
  
• The possibility of losing the entire contents if the crack should suddenly cause the bottle to come apart.

I would doubt that glass has entered or will enter the bourbon. If and when it does, I would be very confident that a coffee filter would remove it. (Filtering bourbon in that way is not as easy as it sounds. I ended up with a few ounces of bourbon on the kitchen counter, the one time I did it. Hint: Make sure the filter paper does not extend higher than the funnel.)

I doubt that any contamination has occurred or will occur. It seems unlikely to me that outside air could circulate through a crack the size you describe. Just think about the amount of air that enters a bottle after it's opened, and compare the two scenairos.

The only instance of crack propagation I've ever seen was on the windshield of my Geo Prizm (a GM-badged Toyota). The crack that appeared literally right before my eyes extended six inches from the bottom edge of the glass. Over the next few weeks its length increased by at least two feet, along a startlingly twisty path. Eventually it stopped growing. Even without the safety lamination there's no way a chunk of glass could have separated from the rest.

I would treat the bottle as a conversation piece, perhaps, but I'd be in no hurry to open it just because of the crack.

Yours truly,

Dave Morefield

[gothbat]

Thanks to Joe and Dave for quickly setting my mind at ease! I've attached some pictures, it's odd but looking at the pictures and the bottle itself the crack looks like a scratch, especially compared to other cracked bottles I've seen, but I figure it's impossible to scratch a glass bottle like that. It seems to me like the best thing to do, based on your responses, would be to just let it sit on the shelf until it's ready to be opened which is great because that's what I was hoping the best course would be.

I notice about 2mm above the crack, towards the inside of the glass (kinda hard to see in the pic), there are tiny air bubbles in the glass. Maybe the crack was, in part, caused by some imperfection in the glass; not that it matters or anything. If it didn't have one before it's got one now!

Dave,

Wow, I remember reading that post and seeing that picture when I first found this site and, strangely, remembered it last night. Before I went to bed I remember thinking to myself something along the lines of "I gotta find that post, if whoever posted that filtered and drank that then I'm pretty confident with just leaving it on the shelf and doing the same whenever open it". Sorry to hear about your windshield, I actually have a small crack in mine as well but fortunately, after over 4 years, it's still just as small as it was when I noticed it. I guess that's a good sign for the bottle as well.

[mozilla]

Looks to be a box cutter scratch. People are not very careful in the liquor biz and things take a cut or two. Just my two cents.

Jeff M