diff --git a/arrow-json/src/writer/mod.rs b/arrow-json/src/writer/mod.rs
index ee1b5fabe538..aa6ea9b8aa66 100644
--- a/arrow-json/src/writer/mod.rs
+++ b/arrow-json/src/writer/mod.rs
@@ -413,6 +413,19 @@ where
         Ok(())
     }
 
+    /// Gets a reference to the underlying writer.
+    pub fn get_ref(&self) -> &W {
+        &self.writer
+    }
+
+    /// Gets a mutable reference to the underlying writer.
+    ///
+    /// Writing to the underlying writer must be done with care
+    /// to avoid corrupting the output JSON.
+    pub fn get_mut(&mut self) -> &mut W {
+        &mut self.writer
+    }
+
     /// Unwraps this `Writer<W>`, returning the underlying writer
     pub fn into_inner(self) -> W {
         self.writer
diff --git a/dev/release/verify-release-candidate.sh b/dev/release/verify-release-candidate.sh
index 2629d362aaff..e140473a6270 100755
--- a/dev/release/verify-release-candidate.sh
+++ b/dev/release/verify-release-candidate.sh
@@ -113,7 +113,11 @@ test_source_distribution() {
   export ARROW_TEST_DATA=$PWD/arrow-testing-data/data
   export PARQUET_TEST_DATA=$PWD/parquet-testing-data/data
 
-  cargo test --all
+  # ignore arrow-pyarrow due to
+  # https://github.com/apache/arrow-rs/issues/7736
+  # ignore parquet-variant due to
+  # https://github.com/apache/arrow-rs/issues/7746
+  cargo test --all --exclude arrow-pyarrow --exclude parquet-variant
 
   # verify that the leaf crates can be published to crates.io
   # we can't verify crates that depend on others