The Torq: An Innovative Glass Closure

The owner of Glenrothes Single Highland Malt Whisky, Edrington has recently partnered with Guala Closures, JC Ribeiro and Allied Glass to create a unique and innovative natural cork stopper that has never applied to spirit beverage in the past. It has been given the name TorQ due to the natural cork closure, requiring a slight twist to release from the bottle. This innovative glass closure has the potential to produce significant benefits for the spirits industry. The Asia-Pacific region is a highly important market for Scotch Whisky. In particular, premium products and Single Malt Scotch have generated huge levels of growth with great opportunities continuing in these markets.

Current Limitations:

The most premium way of sealing a bottle is to use a natural cork stopper, this closure is widely recognized and typically used within these products. However, this traditional closure can cause significant problems in markets with a hot climate or where journeys through an extended supply chain can include challenging environments en route.

A warmer environment heats the whisky causing it to expand and compress the headspace above the liquid which can result in leakage, failure of the stopper, damage to the packaging or in an extreme case, the stopper can be expelled explosively, destroying the capsule. Sometimes this damage can be invisible until the point of sale or consumption which can damage brand reputation. The recent partnership has seen a development of a creative solution to the failure standard cork mouth closures to address the issues of failure in hot climates.

TorQ:

The innovated TorQ closure looks no different to a standard cork closure, which means that there is no loss of quality perception to the product on the shelf. However, both the glass finish and the closure are threaded so a small twist upon the closure application secures the cork and the threads prevent any upwards creep or movement. The consumer intuitively twists a cork when they remove it from the bottle so this ingenious solution uses this natural instinct to solve an industry-wide issue.

Many consumers who attempt to lever a cork stopper from the bore with their thumbs can break the cork, a relatively common complaint from customers in any market. The TorQ has an additional benefit which requires the consumer to twist the closure to remove it and the developers expect that the number of complaints to significantly reduce as a result of this innovation. Glenrothes Single Highland Malt Whisky, using the TorQ closure is running at normal application speeds and thousands of cases have already been shipped to customers around the world with confidence that the product will arrive in pristine condition.

Source: Allied Glass Containers and The Glenrothes Distillery