Post #292913 by TikiJosh on Sun, Mar 18, 2007 6:32 PM

I drink out of vintage (and crazed) mugs once in a while, though not every day. Part of it is the "you only live once" attitude. Something's going to kill me. It might as well be lead out of a tiki mug, though I doubt that would be it. Still, it's better than getting hit by a car in the crosswalk while walking to work.

I've seen a little about lead exposure in ceramics, before. From my understanding, you're not exposed to a serious amount of lead in occasional uses-- like that leaded crystal that only gets used once a year, even if you put something alcoholic in it. Now if you used that leaded crystal every day for several years, even with non-alcoholic stuff, you might have more cause for concern. I don't believe any info exists about how much lead is leached from a ceramic vessel per drink, and how that might correlate to lead poisoning, but I'd be careful about using anything day after day.

Most of my Mai-Tai consumption is from a double rocks glass that I was able to lift from the Royal Hawaiian on my last visit. (It's no tiki mug, but it feels so cool while watching syndicated episodes of Five-0 on the TV.) Anyway, the point I was on the way to making is that since I'm using old ceramics rarely, I tend to worry about it even less. The air pollution outside is probably more hazardous.