The Corkscrew: A Short History from Muskets to Waiter's Friends
Andi Healey
Web Manager
It started life clearing a musket barrel, got patented almost by accident in 1795, and has been quietly reinvented every few decades since. There's still no single "correct" corkscrew, just the one that suits how you open a bottle.
- Cork-sealed bottles only became possible once English glassmakers created stronger, coal-fired glass in the 1600s.
- The corkscrew's direct ancestor is a musket cleaning tool called a "worm", not a wine invention at all.
- The first corkscrew patent came in 1795, from Reverend Samuel Henshall, and its basic shape hasn't really changed since.
- 1882 gave us the waiter's friend, still the professional's tool of choice.
- The 20th century, via winged corkscrews and the Screwpull, mostly focused on removing effort and skill from the job.
For most of wine's history, nobody needed a corkscrew, because wine wasn't sealed with cork. Roman and medieval wine was stoppered with wax, oiled cloth, or simply drunk within the year, so long-term sealed storage wasn't really necessary.
Glass bottles existed, but they weren't strong or standardised enough to lie down and age.
Where the need came from
17th centuryThe corkscrew wasn't developed because someone wanted a clever gadget. It appeared because wine storage itself had fundamentally changed.
English glassmakers started firing furnaces with coal instead of wood, producing much stronger, darker glass. Cork oak grows across the Iberian Peninsula, and cork had been used there, and by the Greeks and Romans, as a stopper for barrels and other vessels for centuries. It hadn't been used for wine bottles before, because sealed glass wine bottles hadn't existed.
Put the two together and you get something new: a bottle that can be sealed airtight, laid on its side, and left alone for years.
Which immediately raised a question nobody had needed to answer before.
How do you get the damned cork back out again?
Borrowed from a gun, not built for a bottle
Late 1600sEarly drinkers used whatever was to hand: a knife, a fork, brute force. But the tool that actually solved the problem didn't come from winemaking. It came from firearms.
The "worm", a helical spike used to clear wadding and unspent shot from a musket barrel, had been a part of a standard soldier's kit since the 1600s. It's a short leap from "spiral tool that pulls debris out of a narrow tube" to "spiral tool that pulls cork out of a narrow tube", and references to a "steele worme used for drawing corkes" start turning up in English writing by the end of the century.
So the corkscrew's direct ancestor is a gun cleaning accessory. Nobody sat down and designed a tool to remove corks. Someone simply noticed a soldier's worm did the job.
The first patent
1795The corkscrew as an object in its own right, rather than a repurposed gun part, got its first patent in 1795, granted in England to Reverend Samuel Henshall. His design added a simple disc, now called the Henshall button, between the worm and the handle, stopping the screw going too deep and letting you press down on the bottle top as you twisted.
It's a small addition, but it marks something that's stayed true ever since: the basic mechanism, a helical worm on a handle, hasn't really changed. Almost everything invented afterwards has been about reducing effort on the pull, not reinventing how the cork is gripped.
The Victorians overdo it magnificently
19th centuryOnce the corkscrew existed as its own category, the 19th century did what the 19th century did to most household objects: over-engineered it. Double-lever designs, rack-and-pinion types, corkscrews built into walking canes and pocket knives. Patents multiplied, and collectors today can spend a lifetime (and a fortune) on Victorian corkscrew variants alone.
The design that actually stuck was much simpler. In 1882, German inventor Karl Wienke patented the waiter's friend, a folding lever corkscrew that hinges against the bottle's lip in two stages to lift the cork with minimal arm strength. Rather than hauling the cork out in one go, the first step gets it moving and the second finishes the job, making the whole process feel surprisingly effortless.
Compact, cheap to produce, mechanically sound, which is why sommeliers are still carrying more or less the same design well over a century later.
Making it foolproof
20th centuryThrough the 1900s the challenge shifts from "how do we pull a cork" to "how do we stop people getting it wrong". The winged corkscrew, with two levers that rise as the worm descends and can then be pushed down to extract it, turns opening a bottle into something close to idiot-proof. Not elegant, and hard on corks, but forgiving, which is why it ended up in more kitchen drawers than any other design.
The other major leap was the Screwpull, developed in the 1970s by Texan inventor Herbert Allen after he watched his wife struggle with a traditional corkscrew.
Its Teflon-coated worm slid cleanly into the cork with very little resistance, while a simple lever action drew the cork out almost effortlessly.
More importantly, it changed expectations. Until then, opening a bottle was assumed to require a bit of technique, a steady hand and occasionally some brute force. The Screwpull turned it into something almost anyone could do smoothly on the first attempt.
It quickly became a premium kitchen gadget in its own right, winning multiple design awards before the Screwpull brand was eventually acquired by Le Creuset. More importantly, it was one of the first wine accessories people were genuinely happy to leave on display rather than hide in a drawer.
Where things sit now
None of this history has actually converged on one correct corkscrew, which is the interesting part. Professionals mostly still reach for a version of Wienke's 1882 waiter's friend, because it's compact, controllable, and lets you feel what the cork is doing. Home drinkers lean towards winged or lever-action designs, trading elegance for reliability. Collectors chase the Victorian oddities precisely because they're wonderfully impractical.
Increasingly, most of us don't need a corkscrew very often. Screw caps now seal a significant share of the world's wine, and the old assumption that they signal a cheap bottle is out of date: they turn up on everything from a Tuesday-night Riesling to a wine you're happily forgetting about for the next fifteen years. Chosen because they seal more consistently than cork, not because anyone's cutting corners.
Cork hasn't gone anywhere though, and plenty of bottles still arrive under one, whether you're ready or not. Which is where a decent corkscrew earns its keep: a cheap corkscrew will shred an old, softened cork into confetti rather than lifting it, leaving you fishing crumbs out of the bottle and quietly reconsidering your choices.
A good one, held steady and used properly, gets the cork out smoothly and in one piece, which, after two hundred years of gun parts, over-engineered Victorian levers and a Teflon wielding Texan, feels like the least it could do.
Choosing a corkscrew today
There's no single right answer here, which is rather the point of the last three hundred years. It comes down to what you're actually opening, and how often.
If you want something that fits in a pocket or a drawer without fuss, the waiter's friend is still hard to beat. It takes a bit of practice to use well, but it gives you real control over how the cork comes out, which matters most on older, more fragile corks.
If corkscrews aren't really your thing and you'd rather not think about technique at all, a winged corkscrew removes almost all of the guesswork. It's bulkier and less kind to corks than a waiter's friend, but it's close to impossible to get wrong, which counts for a lot at the end of a long day.
If you love a fantastic bit of engineering or you're regularly opening older bottles with corks that have started to soften or crumble, a quality lever-action corkscrew or a Screwpull-style puller is worth having. There's less reliance on grip, technique, or a steady hand.
Speaking of older bottles with corks that have started to soften or crumble the essential tool here is the Vacu Vin Cork Puller, where the elegant two-prong design removes broken or brittle corks without needing to "pierce" them, so avoiding the risk of further damage.
And if you collect the things rather than use them, that's a different hobby entirely, and a good one. Just keep a waiter's friend somewhere handy for the bottles you actually intend to drink.
| Design | Era | Still around because |
|---|---|---|
| T-handle worm | 1600s–1700s | The original, still sold for its simplicity |
| Waiter's friend | 1882 | Compact, controllable, the professional's choice |
| Winged corkscrew | Early-mid 1900s | Forgiving, hard to get wrong |
| Screwpull | 1970s | Removes technique from the job entirely |
Frequently asked questions
Why is it called a "worm"?
It's a direct carryover from firearms terminology. The helical spike used to clean a musket barrel was called a worm long before anyone used the same shape to pull a cork.
What's the oldest surviving corkscrew?
Dating is difficult, as early corkscrews weren't marked or documented, but surviving examples with steel worms and turned handles are generally attributed to the late 1600s, alongside the rise of cork-sealed glass bottles.
Is the waiter's friend still the best option?
Depends what you value. It's compact and gives good control over extraction, which is why professionals favour it, but it takes more practice than a winged or lever corkscrew.
Why did anyone bother with the Screwpull if the waiter's friend already worked?
Ease, mostly. The Screwpull needed almost no strength or technique, which made it popular at home even though professionals largely stuck with their waiter's friends.
Thanks Paul.
That’s the aim, to inform, engage and (hopefully) entertain. Always nice to hear that I’m at least getting close!
Thanks again.
Fabulous article from Andi as always. Informative and interesting with no fuss or nonsense. I look forward to reading them each week 👍
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