Recently, we received this railway waggon. It’s from the Jim Beam Wheel Series, Beam Trains, Caboose – Red #91197
As you probably already guessed, this waggon isn’t “innocent”. It contains a porcelain whiskey bottle (with whiskey 150 months old when bottled).
And of course, part of the whiskey is still inside.
And there’s another one from the same series which also contains whiskey – and in this case the tax seal of the bottle is still intact.
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I would suggest Karen’s suggestion. Certainly the sealed container can/should be left as it is. I would check with a conservator about any problems that might be caused by an unsealed, but securely closed container of alcohol, but unless there is a major hazard problem I would also leave the second bottle as it is. Should the whiskey in the second bottle need to be disposed of, I don’t think any of your collections colleagues would fault you should you choose a more personal way of safely disposing of the liquid.
https://www.nzaht.org/pages/shackletons-whisky
Here is another example.
My always caveat when dealing with liquids. If it is sealed and stable, leave it alone, but keep an I eye on it for changes. Why mess with something you don’t have to. If it is leaking, can cause a mess if accidentally tipped over, or strange substances appear on the exterior, time to do some dumping.
As for question #2, it’s gotta be pretty smooth by now… Just sayin”…