Warning on bottles with very tight fitting corks

Normally, a very tight fitting cork such as those found on Don Q Gran Anejo or Kirk & Sweeney rums are a very good thing. However, the very tight fitting cork on my new bottle of Carta Vieja Golden Cask 18 Solera caused the thin glass around the neck to break when I corked it back up this evening. The entire neck became separated from the rest of the bottle. Luckily, no glass wound up in the rum itself and I was able to transfer this excellent rum to an empty bottle of Ron Zacapa XO. All the more reason to save the best old bottles. Keep this in mind when corking bottles of this type back up. This has never happened to me before, so I am passing this safety tip onto fellow reviewers.

There is a trick to tight corks - well, to those that can be grabbed with hand, those cork stoppers. Do not pull the cork straight from the neck of the bottle, but instead, twist the cork in the neck first until you feel it's freely moving. That way, you loosen the cork first. and then, while still rotating it, add a slight pull to the motion to gradually pull it out of the bottle. A pre-loosened cork won't fit so tight, you will be able to remove it using less force, hence the probability of breaking it will be also lower.

Update: I finally found another bottle of Carat Vieja 18 and they seem to have solved the problem by creating a cork that does not fit nearly as tight as my first bottle. That first bottle had a cork that required twisting off, but was still too tight when corking it back up.

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Warning on bottles with very tight fitting corks

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