The screwpull model on the left is a beautiful machine. This is really the Terminator of all corkscrews, reliable, relentless and it’s back time and time again to pull and extract corks. On the right is his grandfather. Sir Edward Thomason was granted a patent in 1802 for this ingenious design. This double-barrel corkscrew inserts inside the neck of the bottle and as you keep turning, will extract the cork in a single motion. While the modern screwpull is visually appealing, Thomason’s two-hundred-year-old instrument was well-designed for its day. His double-barrel corkscrew was made out of pewter, brass, steel, bone and pig hair for the brush. This little brush came in handy for dusting off dirty bottles from wax or spiderwebs.
Sir Edward Thomason's factory produced corkscrews that were marked "NE PLUS ULTRA" meaning, "Cannot be improved further." Clearly, the corkscrew Thomason invented was considered the ultimate corkscrew by that time's measure.
The Ah-So style, or twin prong style, corkscrew has a simple concept. Two steel prongs are inserted between the cork and the glass. This system allows for a gentle extraction, and is used for older corks that may have become brittle or damaged from other types of corkscrews. If you wiggle and twist the cork (not your body) you can extract any kind of stopper. This style requires slightly more skill than your average corkscrew. This corkscrew concept was patented in the U.S. in 1892 by Lucian Mumford.
Champagne taps from around 1865 follow the same basic principle as the Coravin system. A sharp needle-shaped instrument goes through the stopper to allow pouring wine without any contact with air. This helps preserve the wine if you do not have time to finish a bottle. This was a problem that was solved a couple of centuries ago. Original Champagne taps featured handles made of boxwood, ebony or other types of wood. The worm was a steel shaft, sometimes silver-plated like the one below, which allowed for the flow of liquid inside of the spigot, toward the top.
The images below are a close-up of the corkscrews above. They feature tips that are intricately designed to look like a lion, a swan or a snake.
I promise you that I do not receive any royalties, but I use our WineShop At Home Boomerang Corkscrew every day, as it is sturdy and allows me to open many types of bottles very easily.
Happy uncorking, with whatever you are using!
