Previously, it was placed on almost every bottle, but now you won’t find it with fire in the afternoon: I’ll tell you where the famous Soviet peakless cork disappeared

In Soviet times, glass containers with alcohol and not only were clogged with a remarkable cork. Among ourselves, we, young lovers of gatherings, called her “peakless”. As I found out later, she received such a nickname everywhere in the Union.

The history of its invention and the torment of an ordinary Soviet alcoholic with this seemingly simple accessory is interesting. I will tell it in this article.

Where did this name come from, who invented it, the principle of opening corks

With the name of the cork, everything is simple – it really, very much looked like a headdress of a Russian military sailor. It was invented by Viktor Safonov, who worked as a technologist at a wine factory in the city of Yaroslavl.

Important! In the West, such an idea would bring him millions. But the Soviet state appreciated Safonov’s rationalization proposal at a 30-ruble bonus and a letter of encouragement. For comparison, I, as a young engineer, in the USSR received a salary of 120 rubles a month.

A peakless cap was made from thin aluminum foil 0,2 mm thick. She wrinkled without much effort, which made it possible to tightly compress the neck of a filled bottle. To seal the container, a round piece of thick cardboard was inserted under the cork.

Initially, the peakless cap was made with a tongue ribbon. To open the bottle, you had to gently pull on it. However, it often happened that the tongue came off prematurely.

And then the quest for ingenuity awaited lovers of strong drinks: “open the fiery water with improvised means.” We solved it like this:

1. The easiest option is to pry the foil with a sharp object, and then cut it off. Therefore, I always had a penknife in my pocket.
2. The task was more difficult for the sufferers who had a door key with a sharp tip. But after a couple of minutes, the stubborn traffic jam was losing ground.
3. Our older comrades, experienced people, used homemade corkscrews, can openers, and table forks. They pierced the peakless cap, and then literally pulled it off the neck.
4. Our yard unthrifty and hurried drinkers got to the coveted moisture with the help of their own teeth. They picked up the foil with a fang and literally bit it from the neck.

A few years after its invention, the cape was cynically and cruelly cut off the ribbon. Some official thought that it takes too much aluminum. And it could be useful in the production of electrical appliances and aircraft.

The discounted cork was removed by pressing the thumb on its middle. At the same time, its crimped edges opened, and the lid was removed from the neck.

But that’s in theory. In practice, a lot of effort was needed to cope with the thick foil and cardboard underneath. If we still couldn’t do it, the methods described above were used.

What kind of alcohol in the USSR had such a cork

In the 60-80s of the last century, inexpensive alcohol of all kinds was closed with a peakless cap. These could be:

• Favorite vodka of my company drinking from time to time: Pshenichnaya, Stolichnaya, Russian, Moscow, Kuban and others.

• Three- and five-star Dagestan, Armenian, Georgian cognacs. We drank them on holidays with the family.

• Cheap ordinary and fortified wines, such as mutter port. Favorite swill of yard bastards.

• Tinctures: Zubrovka, St. John’s wort, Pepper, Lemon, etc. We rarely drank this exotic, if we managed to get it.

Where did the cork go after the collapse of the USSR

After the abolition of the dry law of Gorbachev, in the last years of the USSR, alcohol was no longer clogged with a peakless cap. The fact is that then a huge number of underground enterprises and counterfeit products with such a cover bred.

Alcohol “guild workers” were often made from toxic industrial alcohol. As I remember now: in our entrance, a whole family, consisting of four people, was poisoned with a “palen”. And they were just celebrating the arrival of their son from the army.

Based on this, legal distilleries have taken protective measures. Namely: they changed the peakless cap to screw caps. Before that, they were equipped only with expensive, elite alcohol.

What kind of alcohol now has such a cork

The main trouble of the Soviet “left-handers” was that they did not patent their inventions. When the “Iron Curtain” collapsed, crowds of Western crooks poured into the country, seeking to earn easy money on the ruins of a great country.

Now you can’t find out which of them spied on the idea of ​​uXNUMXbuXNUMXb“peakless caps”. But the fact remains: soon a slightly modified peakless cap with a ring instead of a ribbon was patented in the West.

Important! At the moment, such a cork is not even mentioned as a Soviet invention. The Russian manufacturer needs to deduct “author’s” for its use, but no one is going to do this.

Here are examples of products with a ring cap:

• Beer, both Russian and foreign production: Baltika, Stolichnoye, Tuborg, Amstel, etc.
• Various wines, including budget sparkling.

• There is no escape from vodka. Now there are a lot of her brands with a peakless cap.

I have a couple of bottles of alcohol sealed with this legendary cork at home. Do you have such reserves?