Post #534248 by harro on Fri, Jun 4, 2010 2:46 PM

haha, great to see the debate raging!! The temptation is rising within me again!! But I think I will hold out for a special occasion. It's probably one of the pastis' that i'll open first, just to see what they're like.

Randy all those links you provided were good reading... cheers.

Dr Z - I asked the minivodka guy and he had this to say:

"You made a great find. As to the date of the bottle, it is hard to say. It is definitely pre 1920 but I couldn't say for sure how much earlier than that. But it could be from from around the turn of the century. I haven;t seen too many small bottles from the 1880's with such colorful and precision labels. It seems that the distillers did not waster much time on the beauty of their labels back then. They were mostly giving away crock jugs for samples at that time.

With regard to drinking the rum inside, I think it would be risky. There has been very little loss of content due to evaporation which means the cork and lead seal have done a good job. You could certainly try a sip and see what happens. I don;t think a sip could hurt. If there the rum tastes good and there are no ill effects after a couple of hours, then go ahead and finish it off. Since there has been a little evaporation that means that there has been some air getting into the bottle. That could mean that there could also be some bacteria but if that were to be the case, the alcohol would probably kill it. There did not seem to be any sediment in the bottom. So a sip certainly shouldn;t hurt:)

Cheers!"