I like the solution above mine (never heard of Exception::Class before), but the method I usually use is the following.

eval {
    open my $thingy, "something" or die $!;
    die "something\n" if $something;
};

if( $@ ) {
    if( $@ eq "something\n" ) {
        # logging here

    } else {
        die $@;
    }
}
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I actually got that from the alarm(3) manpage, so don't hold it against me.