Things like whisky and bourbon are frequently decanted into elegant cut-crystal bottles and left around dens, living rooms, etc. It looks nice, and is sort of old-fashioned, and is an unnecessary expense, and in general is right up my alley and I’d like to do it.
What’s stopping me is *Home Comforts * by Cheryl Mendelson, where she says that alcohol leaches the lead out of crystal, and that any alcoholic beverage that has sat in a crystal container for more than an hour isn’t safe to drink.
So what’s the dope? Are people giving themselves lead poisoning? Are all decanters lined with regular lead-free glass? Are only some? How can I tell the difference?
As opposed to moonshine or bathtub gin. As in “Go ahead and drink your high falootin’ store liquor, I’ll stick with this anti-freeze laden home liquor.”
A search turned this up. Unfortunately, I don’t subscribe, so I can’t tell any more than you can read there. It was an article from 1991, and I couldn’t find it on the FDA website.
