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color or flint?


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Actually, I just really wanted to kick off a topic in this category, but since I am gearing up to start production of an Absinthe, it would be interesting to hear opinions on the topic of using a colored versus flint glass bottle. Assuming one is making a true absinthe verte with chlorophyll-based coloring, how to choose in the trade-off of a flint glass bottle that will allow the color to show on the shelf, including its eventual fade and accelerating that, versus a colored bottle that may protect the absinthe from fading, but hides the state of the product from an educated buyer of an artisan absinthe?

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  • 1 year later...

I know there exist UV blocking coatings for glass... has been known to block up to 90% of UV transmittance and have been used in food product before (so says my packaging prof) . I truly don't know the feasibility of this for your production and the availability but it might be worth checking into to achieve a close to "best of both worlds" option. You might also think of using a shrink wrap label that leaves a window for viewing... I tend to find these shrink wrap labels look a little cheap/cheesy but I have seen some people that have pulled it off well with a good design... and for production it really only requires a good heater and perhaps hours of annoying calibration (the perfect touch :P)

I would always fear a descent in product quality when using flint bottles... nothing worse then having a couple hundred bottles that you can't sell... if your really good at leaving them in the boxes and avoiding taking them out any longer then necessary you might be able to maintain your color until selling but I fear people will leave it on their counters at home and if it turns brown at their place assume it's gone bad and complain/stain your reputation ... the producer always gets the blaim when people don't treat their alcohol properly. (working at breweries you soon discover that bars for the most part know nothing about maintaining a beer line and will very quickly blaim you when they ruin a keg of beer you sold them...erg... I ended up just doing the leg work myself to clean the lines and hope they didn't over-carbonate the keg out of neglect)

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the coating is benzophenone.. clear and commonly used in the perfume industry to prevent UV damage to the scents... just felt like I should elaborate on the coating I mentioned

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the coating is benzophenone.. clear and commonly used in the perfume industry to prevent UV damage to the scents... just felt like I should elaborate on the coating I mentioned

Les Trois, I looked up that coating you mentioned, and found several article mentioning that it can migrate through glass! Which is pretty amazing. They say the chemical is harmless, but regardless, migration through glass seems a little alarming.

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That doesn't make sense with what I know about glass. Being mostly silica, glass is nonreactive and has no permeability to anything (hence why we love it so much as a container)...the only time migration is a problem to my knowledge is when a compound is incorporated throughout the glass like lead in old crystal and then the compound of concern in leaching from the surface in contact with the media (food) only and not traveling through the glass

I don't get how a surface coating applied to the outside of the bottle could possibly migrate through the glass and affect the food system itself. The physical chemistry doesn't add up in my mind... Perhaps these papers where putting the coating in contact directly with the food (coating the inside) or the benzophenone was incorporated into the glass during the melting process ... I would love to see these articles (I am genuinely curious not doubting your information at all)

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I tried to find the exact articles again but didn't succeed. If you google "benzophenone migration" there are a bunch of articles about it migrating through cardboard and HDPE. Couldn't find the article that claimed it went through glass, although I recall they claimed it was only 1 molecule.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Les, being a total geekhead, I know of one liquid that can permeate through glass... liquid helium.

But, I don't think ambient temperature will be anywhere close to absolute zero, so we're safe... for now.

Oregon Spirit Distillers just finished their absinthe bottle and they went with a jet black bottle with green (glow in the dark) ink, very cool bottle. Tasty absinthe too. You might ask Brad if they've done any longevity tests with clear, green, brown, coated and their black bottles. It would be an interesting white paper.

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hahaha cool stuff pano! but yia not an issues (if people need to cool your product down that far before drinking it then you're probably not doing a good job)

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