Still, it seems the concept has proven more difficult than expected. While Johnnie Walker initially expected to have a market-ready, plastic-free, paper-based bottle in 2021, the brand has yet to find a formula that suits its needs. The brand wouldn’t share an updated timeline for the bottle’s release, saying instead that testing will continue throughout 2023.

“Since we announced the paper bottle, we’ve carried out several rounds of technical testing as well as consumer research with Pulpex. We’ve been prototyping, exploring different formats and closures, and performing sensory and shelf life testing,” Dave Lütkenhaus, global sustainability breakthrough innovation director at Diageo, told Adweek via email. “We refuse to compromise on product and pack performance, so we’re working through the challenges we keep facing.”

Without a plastic liner like is used in a traditional boxed wine or in Juliet’s trademarked Eco-Magnum design, it’s difficult to create a container that’s stable enough to make it through distribution lines and then sit, often for months, on a store shelf. On the flip side, every added material makes recycling or composting the paper package more complicated.

“To make it to completely liquid proof, you have to treat the paper in such a way that it complicates the overall [sustainability] message,” Dan Malenke, paperboard packaging expert and consultant for the Paper and Packaging Board, told Adweek. “We’re using a lot of plastics, foils, laminates, films, UV decorative treatments to the box […] it’s still recyclable, but it’s more complicated. It’s more time consuming, it’s more intensive a process.”

‘The least of all evils’

It’s for many of these reasons that Juliet has opted to use a plastic bag inside the cylindrical box. Still, flexible plastic isn’t generally recyclable in curbside recycling systems. Cognizant of that reality, Juliet includes a prepaid return label in each online order to let drinkers send the plastic bag back for recycling, which Juliet then sends along to its recycling partner, Terracycle. Later this year, it’ll be launching a refill option letting shoppers order a new bag of wine without replacing the paper box.