Beer bottle tops (caps) and wine corks have been used to keep their respective fluids in their respective vessels for longer than most people can remember. Any seasoned drinker will tell you just how many times they have woken up the find hundreds of the things scattered about the place after a big night. However, with the insurgence of the screw top wine and beer bottle, the old designs are being pushed out, and are soon to be an extinct.

Mainly bottle caps have been made from steel and feature 21 teeth the clasp around the rim of the bottle neck very tightly, pulling a thin cork or rubber disk a the top of the cap downward to form a seal. Whilst they were great at keeping the contents of a bottle fresh, they are a nightmare to get off and unless you have teeth made from granite, you have to use a bottle opener to stand any chance of quenching your thirst. This is the main reason that screw top bottle caps have increased in popularity, as they allow people easy access to the content, without the need to have a bottle open to hand at all times.

The case is pretty much the same with wine bottle corks, but there are a couple more reasons why corks are being pushed out (no pun intended). A corkscrew used to be a staple part of any tableware set, but its usefulness is dwindling as screw top wine bottles become more popular. In the same way as beer bottles need a bottle opener, wine bottles always required a corkscrew to be close by, and that’s just not always practical. Further to this, corks loose out massively to screw tops when it comes to the storage of wine for prolonged periods. There is a tendency for cork to contract and expand as moisture levels in the air fluctuate, and this allows air to get into the bottle and spoil the wine. Also, it has a tendency to break up over time if the wine is stored horizontally, as it often is on a wine rack, resulting in the wine sometimes being ‘corked’ when served. Some may argue that nothing can be as good as the classic bottle top and cork designs, although all the evidence suggests that superior products are taking over in their place.