Vanishing Schweppes Tonic

[eddi]

After difficulty finding Schweppes Tonic Water in all the usual places, 7-11, Big C, Makro, Tesco Lotus etc., I decided to buy a 24 can pack from

a drinks wholesaler. Problem solved, well not really, after about 2-3 months I had about 15 cans left in the cupboard but the cupboard floor was quite wet and various other items in there were soaked. On moving out the Tonic cans to clean the mess I discovered about 5 cans completely empty and several others only half full. Looks like they have porous bottoms maybe that's why shops are reluctant to keep it in stock!

Has anyone else had this experience?

......and what's the solution? Store them upside down? Varnish the bottom of the cans?

[Rimmer]

Commercial post removed

[RabC]

Never had a problem but then a case last me about 2-3 weeks.

[islandee]

I accidentally dropped a can of Schweppes' Tonic Water from a height of about 18 inches onto a tile floor and it ruptured. Not explosively, but still dangerously so when one considers the slip factor of liquid on shiny glazed tile. The whole can unloaded on the floor.

Followup 1: Milady, in helping clean up the mess found that there was liquid in the cardboard flat of cans. Five of the cans were leaking, as evident from their substantially different weight. Quarantining them overnight found that on some of them, the bottom roll connecting the wall with the base of the cans was apparently so thin that it was leaking; on others, the rim on the very bottom of the can had cracked and was leaking.

I took the five cans back to the retailer who responded that they were already aware that a problem existed from other customers' complaints and replaced my five deficient cans without question. They said the problem (as least to that time) was limited to Schweppes Tonic Water cans.

Followup 2: on the ruptured can, an indentation in the can's top rolled joint indicated that the can had landed on that "rim". Being inquisitive and possessed of unlimited funds, I went outside and dropped another can from about 18 inches onto its rim on my front tile stoop. The results were not identical, but pointed towards a weakness likely common to all --- the same bottom roll in the can had opened up and liquid was spraying out.

ID on the bottom of the can: 310115 4110E5011548. The first six numbers would appear to be a date, presumably for expiry: 31 Jan 2015. I assume that shelf life is one year, so that the canning date was 31 Jan 2014.

Regardless of date of manufacture, that this problem still exists almost six months after this thread was started doesn't speak very well for the canner (though I see that the post didn't get any support at the time).

[islandee]

Here are illustrations of the dropped cans I mentioned above:

The ruptured can resulting from an accidental drop:

And a closeup of the leak in the intentionally dropped can:

This leak was probably typical of all the five "light weight" cans in my 24 can cardboard flat. And to clarify, I did not drop any of those five cans.