Spontaneous Soda Bottle Explosion...wtf?

Factual Questions
1

Okay. I know I don’t post that much, but here’s a good one.

The wife and family were sitting around watching Dancing With the Stars the other night when a loud report from the kitchen breaks the tension. Upon investigation, a bottle of Shweppes Quinine water, sitting quietly in the kitchen pantry with several other bottles, as well as a few bottles of Canada Dry Ginger Ale has done blowed-up good. Blowed-up real good. It didn’t fall out of the cabinet and break. It was a loud bang, not the glass of glass falling and breaking. It exploded in the pantry :eek: . Glass shards in the cabinet and on the floor. Normal October California temperature. No shaking. There was a small quake much later in the evening a ways away from us, but this was early.

These are the small glass bottles, single serving, not the larger quart (liter) bottles.

We’re mystified. How does a normal bottle of carbonated water suddenly build the pressure?

2

I suspect the strength of the glass was compromised to begin with. Pressure and time took thr toll, until BOOOM the bottle finally succumbed to the forces acting on it.

I had a similar experience with a wine bottle. While not under pressue, there was no explosion, but I nearly sliced my hand open while trying to open it. I had the corkscrew in, and pulled up. Instead of the cork sliding out, the entire neck of the bottle lifted off with zero effort. Sharp glass edges millimeters from my hand. :eek:

3

Maybe some truck or large vehicle passed by and rattled the bottles against each other a bit, enough for the already faulty bottle t give up the ghost.

4

Perhaps it was trying to warn you of things to come.

5

Oh, glass. A many-times recycled bottle perhaps?

I don’t suppose quinine ferments somehow, does it? At my pre-adolecent request, my dad once bought a ginger beer kit from the beer store, not realizing how different it was from regular beer kits. A few weeks later, the ginger beer stubbies under the bathroom sink started going off like firecrackers.

6

IIRC, glass becomes quite weak from the smallest of scratches on its surface, so it may have been compromised (as suggested above.)

7

I just had the same thing happen, but with a can. It was tonic water (same thing as quinine water), so maybe there really is some chemical reaction going on.

I heard a loud bang, but didn’t know what it was from. A little while later, when I opened the pantry, I saw that a can had burst. The had deformed upward and then ripped open (half way around the rim, as if someone had run a really sharp can opener half way around). Most of the drink was still in the can, it didn’t spray or fizz out much.

The next can beside it was deformed too, the top bulged out, but not burst. This one was diet Sprite. I’m not sure if this happened as a result of its neighbor bursting, or if the same unknown force deformed both of them, and one managed to survive.

There was no heat source in there. The cans had been undisturbed for weeks or more (I don’t drink those types much). The air temperature wasn’t anything extreme, around 25°C. There was a storm coming in, but I can’t think that atmospheric pressure changes would be enough to do that.

I have no answer, but I thought I’d add this additional info to the mystery.