The Screw Cap Vs The Cork

I've had rotted(1) corks, and a few have broken on me.. I wouldn't expect to have that sort of problem with a screw cap. On the other hand I really enjoy the "thooop" sound a cork makes coming out of the bottle..

The major thing in favor of corks though is that they require less co-ordination to opperate, that can be a benefit.

(1) mushy and sour smelling.. I assume they were rotten.

Got to be the cork. I'm still having a hard time with scew-top wines!

Corks are cute, quaint, and romantic. I like them, but I will take quality control over nostalgia when the chips are down.

Personally, I have no preference, as long as the product inside the bottle is of quality. However, I do agree that opening a bottle with a cork is way more satisfying when paying 100$ CAD for a bottle :D

A couple of other negatives about screw caps other than their less romantic associations: first, they are usually made from aluminum, I believe, which is toxic to human beings. Second, there is also the question as to whether an aluminum screw cap would leach out enough aluminum in contact with alcohol to potentially influence flavours in the whisky. Plastic would be a safer material for whisky screw caps. Of course, plastic is rather lacking in charm.

As a traditionalist, definitely a cork. The feel and sound of pulling a cork is part of the experience for me and although I know its mainly in my mind twisting a cap starts off the drink with a hint in the lack-in-quality.

If it were for the Glenfiddich or Glenlivet 12, I would't mind at all. Considering the price, it shouldn't be too hard to conceive a screw top although that's only my personal opinion. Preferably if I were to buy a bottle of let us say, Auchentoshan 25 yr, I take off the seal only to find a bloody screw top, I would be a little dissapointed considering it some what decreases the value of the vintage. It isn't as if I wont appreciate the beautiful liquid inside, but everytime I take it off, I'll be thinking about the fact there is a screw cap and not a cork.

There is something nostalgic and natural about a bottle being capped with a cork rather than a screw top, especially when talking wine and whisky.

I used to have a phobia with screw tops on wine bottles but got over it after trying a couple of bottles that were recommended by a friend and turned out to be very good.

Although I prefer a cork in my wine and whisky bottles, if it's a bottle that is recommended by a friend or well reviewed within the community...screw it! I won't care how it's capped as long as it's good to drink!

I think my 1st encounter with a screw cap malt was with Yamazake 12. I began twisting the plastic cap, expecting to pull out the cork, but instead the cap screwed off ... leaving a threaded bottle top. That was shocking and strange ... but I quickly rationalized ... another culture with different ways ... or innovative whisky and innovative cap :)

In general, I do agree that corks compliment good whisky ... but a bad cork, such as those that break, tend to raise a flag regarding quality control.

Lower shelf bourbons usually have screw caps. But I actually like the high-quality and efficient black plastic screw cap on my "goto" Bulleit Bourbon. Then there are rums with good corks, bad corks, and disintegrating corks; sometimes they have a good plastic screw cap with regulated pour spout, but mostly the caps are soft aluminum ... which I very much dislike.

Finally, screw caps on wine are handy when you forget your corkscrew. And screw caps can be welcome on whisky, for those late night under the radar nips :)

@AboutChoice I saw your comment about Bulleit Bourbon having a twist cap. I drink it regularly here in California (one of my favorite standbys) and it always has a cork...interesting difference.

@zigman, I have the 375ml size of Bulleit ... seems to be thin and curved bottle with the nice screw cap ... make for convenience and portability :-)

@AboutChoice that makes sense then. Ive never owned 375ml bottle. Always go for the Super Size, haha. Anyways, nice bit of trivia, thanks.

I'm a cork man myself, as has been previously noted by others its things like the sound it makes as you take the cork from a bottle of whisky, and i tend to associate better whisky with a cork. The whiskies i've tried with screw caps tend to be the generic drams, like Bells, Teachers, Grouse, Jameson etc.

Here's another thing: how does everyone like those "new-corks" ... those hard plastic plugs that, to varying degrees, resemble a real cork ? Some of he new-corks seem to be harder than a real cork, and hence they are more difficult to twist, remove and re-insert. And, they can be nearly as tacky as a screw cap.

Example: Glenrothes 1991 (a very fine dram) has a real cork that looks right and works well, whereas Glenrothes 1992 has a rather solid tan toosie-roll type cork that looks plastic, and takes a good deal of strength and dexterity to operate. So what is your choice for the future: plastic cork or screw cap ?

@AboutChoice Definitely a screw cap... Fake corks are like "We're too cheap to get the real thing, but we're going to try to fool you with plastic"

Great post @LeFrog! I'm glad to see my comment prompted such excellent discussion.

To clarify my position: I, too, am a romantic when it comes to corks versus screw caps. They're pretty, they sound and feel nice to pull from the bottle, and they're steeped in "tradition." Nevertheless, they are impractical, as they can break, rot, and—if your bottle is stored improperly—ruin your whisky.

I find it amusing that some think a screw cap is acceptable on cheap whiskies, but not on pricier ones. While I get that the more expensive the bottle, the more you expect nice presentation, I would much rather reduce the risk of loss to an expensive, difficult to replace, bottle over a cheap one.

Thin metal screw caps (as can often be found on sample-sized bottles) are awful, to me mainly because they can lose their grip on the threads and become pointless. Plastic caps, however, are great. They are reliable, hardy, and seem to have no influence on the whisky proper. As @Victor said (and I like to quote him regularly), "I will take quality control over nostalgia".

Someone mentioned wine and screw caps. I think it's worth noting that because they allow a certain amount of air transfer, corks in wine contribute to the maturation of the wine in the bottle. Wine with screw caps ages very little - if at all - and therefore they are only really appropriate in less expensive wines which are made to be drunk quickly. Wine which needs to mature needs a cork.

Whisky on the other hand does most of it's maturing in the cask - you only bottle it when its ready. In fact you don't want it to change too much. For example peaty whiskies can lose their peatiness once opened. I suspect therefore that @dbk has a point. Good quality whisky probably shouldn't have cork.

For the record I prefer corks even though that contradicts my argument. What can I tell ya?

I recently purchased and cracked open my first bottle of Jim Beam Black Label 8yo. Surprisingly delicious and likely to be a regular in my cabinet. The only "problem" I had with it was the screw cap. My fleeting thought as I first opened it and tasted my first dram of it was "boy, sure would be nice if it had a cork". I got over it quickly.

This is not the stereotypical Jim Beam I had in my mind or had remembered from years ago. As Jim Murray says in his 2011 Whisky Bible "unquestionably one of the great bourbons, this is an everyday whiskey with which I win more converts to the bourbon cause than any other".

With a 94 rating AND a screw top, not bad at all!

For the most part I prefer corks to screw caps. Something about a cork just makes it seem cheap. That might sound kind of strange, but for some reason that's what clicks into my mind when I see one. Usually that's only true when it comes to whisky and wine.

I buy a lot of wine as well as whisky. I used to return at least one bottle in 12 that was corked or oxidized. Since the screw cap and artificial cork have become common, even in upmarket wines, I have only returned one in the last six months and it had a natural cork. If my expensive whisky keeps better with something other than a traditional cork, I really don't care how it is capped and I will get over any cork snobbery real quick. Also I understand that real cork from cork oaks is getting scarce and expensive so if an alternative capping method makes whisky less expensive, I'm on board for that too.

I found it a bit off-putting but when I tasted the 18 yr old Yamazaki, I forgot all about it. :)

I have a bottle of Yamazaki 18, cant wait to "unscrew it"...still sounds weird.

@dbk Very true about keeping quality control over appearance for older bottles, making a screw cap more practical. Although that is agreeable, putting in terms of, you are given a bottle of whisky for christmas, by lets say another enthusiast, he or she says "Let's open it up!" later that night. You both take a seat, undo the seal, and it's a screw top. I just think it takes away from the classic appeal altogether. I can trust a screw top, but uncorking feels embedded in me, and screw tops seem to far along an unused path that I personally do not wish to take.

I have to agree with LeFrog on this. No matter how practical a screw cap might be, part of the experience of opening a good bottle of whisky is grasping that cork and hearing that pop as it comes free of the bottle.

I really like that more and more distillers are using quality wood caps on their corks, like the ones on my bottles of Glenrothes 98 and Balvenie 12 Double Wood. It doesn't affect the taste either-way, but it does add to the overall feeling of a quality product from distillers that are proud of their offerings.

This was a shock: This evening I thought I would try a bit of my Wasmund's American Single Malt Whisky from Virginia. I had previously broken the red wax seal that has covered the cap and the neck of the bottle .. but that was a few months ago. Tonight as I was ready to sample, I twisted the wax-covered cap to remove the cork ... and to my surprise and dismay, the classy wax-covered cap screwed right off !! But after recovering from the shock, I pressed on to the tasting, only a bit daunted. Continuing with an evening of surprises, the shocking taste was intriguing, unique, distinct and highly novel ... and so innovative as to perfectly match the red waxed-coated screw cap !! This was a harmony of non-traditional components ... and sometimes things just seem to fall in place :)

@AboutChoice I wonder if the wax top packaging seal is part ploy to hide the screw cap. And if you knew it were a screw cap @AC, would you still have made the purchase?

Sounds like the resulting tasting was a success and you provide more open minded testimonial to the screw cap vs cork argument. At the end of the day, if it tastes good, it doesn't matter if we "screw it" or cork it. After a few sips, the romance and novelty of whether it's a cork or not should result in a short minded finish.

You can, of course, get good and bad corks as well as good and bad screw tops. Assuming good quality, Decanter Magazine analysed this a while ago and came to the conclusion that screw tops are generally tighter and affect the wine less over a long period than corks.

I had a tour around a winery some time ago and the lady conducting the tour told me that they would much rather use screw tops but that the consumer still thinks a good wine has to have a cork and that a screw top means cheap - ergo they put cork into their bottles. I think the same applies to whisky, as shown in this thread.

Personally, I can understand why some prefer the cork romanticism - although it does not necessarily indicate the quality of the spirit. I have had too many broken corks to feel a sense of romanticism. And I loath plastic corks.

Give me a screw top any time.

@Victor It's my understanding that most screwcaps (or, as they're called in the wine biz, "Stelvin closures") have a thin plastic film inside to prevent alcohol contact with the aluminium. However my instruction has always been to store whisky upright - this would have dual benefits of removing liquid-to-cork contact, and also minimising the surface area of liquid available for oxidation.

I guess you probably shouldn't get this with whisky, but one drawback of screwcaps is that if a liquid with any sort of sugar content gets into the thread it can quite often stick the bottle shut... as we found the other night during a tasting whilst trying to open the bottle of E150a we had to look at.

We can now take this discussion into a sub-category of screw cap...a metal screw cap vs the plastic screw cap!

And here I thought I had cured myself of any potential psychological damage or perceptions from "screw cap-a-phobia" after being pleasantly surprised by the contents under the metal screw cap of the Jim Beam Black Label I recently cracked open.

Tonight I cracked open a bottle of Ancient Ancient Age 10 YO only to find not only the anticipated screw cap but a plastic one at that! But, after tasting this delicious "bang for your buck" classic, again, I quickly forgot about the "unromantic" PLASTIC screw cap bottle from where this tasty libation was poured and enjoyed every sip. Screw it...again !

The 'wine likes corks as air transfer helps aging' thing isn't so much of a big thing with wood/plastic capped corks, I think. I was in Porto recently (drinking lots of tasty port) and the guys we were talking to about storage of port distinguished between straight through corks and capped stoppers - it looks like the cap on the top pretty much stops the gas movement through the cork in a way that foil wrapping doesn't.

There does seem to be an interesting hierarchy of closures across boozy drinks though:

Straight through cork > stoppered cork > screw cap

Add on to that canned whisky and it only leaves the riptop shot glass and we've got a full house. I suspect they already exist...