diff --git a/dev/release/verify-release-candidate.sh b/dev/release/verify-release-candidate.sh
index fee276c11..be86f69e0 100755
--- a/dev/release/verify-release-candidate.sh
+++ b/dev/release/verify-release-candidate.sh
@@ -125,15 +125,19 @@ test_source_distribution() {
   git clone https://github.com/apache/arrow-testing.git testing
   git clone https://github.com/apache/parquet-testing.git parquet-testing
 
-  cargo build
-  cargo test --all
+  python3 -m venv venv
+  source venv/bin/activate
+  python3 -m pip install -U pip
+  python3 -m pip install -r requirements-310.txt
+  maturin develop
+
+  #TODO: we should really run tests here as well
+  #python3 -m pytest
 
   if ( find -iname 'Cargo.toml' | xargs grep SNAPSHOT ); then
     echo "Cargo.toml version should not contain SNAPSHOT for releases"
     exit 1
   fi
-
-  cargo publish --dry-run
 }
 
 TEST_SUCCESS=no