So I just received my bottle of the Rum Sponge Clarendon and the cork isn’t airtight. It doesn’t leak but the bottle smells of rum. I don’t really want to open the bottle right now. So what do you do in a case like this? Just put a ton of parafilm on the bottle and cross your fingers that it will be sufficient?
7 Likes
I would contact the shop to see if a replacement is available. If so, I would split the first bottle to recover the money.
Unironically, 3 cl please. 
4 Likes
I never had a bad cork stopper. Once I had a bottle that had a tiny crack and was leaking slightly. But the whole bottle was not worth to make it an issue.
In your case the least you could try is to get a little discount - as there aint no bottles for exchange I suppose.
Edit: Are you sure it’s the cork? Maybe you bottle has a tiny crack too?
2 Likes
The bottle is sold out and I already did a split.
Since the rum is a contender for one of the best releases of the year IMHO I wanted a bottle for the collection.
4 Likes
Is it an option to contact Rum Sponge themselves over an issue like this?
It’s possible the bottle was already defunct when it left the warehouse.
2 Likes
Why not try the cork of the bottle that you did the split with? Or fill into that one?
5 Likes
Good idea! 
4 Likes
If you don’t mind opening it just transfer it to some other bottle, usually a better option is a screwcap. In that case the evaporation should be minimal.
2 Likes
Replacing the cork means destroying the capsule. Not sure if that’s what you want for a collection bottle.
First I would make sure that there is an actual defect with your bottle. The smell could be from another broken bottle that was in the proximity of yours at some point during storage or shipping.
9 Likes
Search Google for ‘Parafilm’ 
Whiskycollectors also use it
2 Likes
