There are plenty of ways you can get your way into booze. You can whip the top off a bottle of champagne with a sword, or even get into a bottle of wine with a drill. But if you want to do it properly, time and again, you need a waiter's friend.
OK, so it might just look like a normal little corkscrew. That's because it is a normal little corkscrew. But it stands out from all the others — ones with levers, pumps, and strange screw mechanisms — because of its simplicity.
There's a reason that this kind of corkscrew is called a waiter's friend. Waiters open a lot of bottles every day. They do it in a hurry. They don't want any fuss: they just want to open the damn bottle and get on their way.
This corkscrew lets them do that. It has a blade to cut the foil on the tops of bottles, an integrated opener for beers, and — as you'd hope — a cork screw, too. It's the bare minimum, but it's all you need to get into any bottle of booze I have ever come across. Just as importantly, they're built to last: I've never seen one break.
Perhaps best, though, is the sleek, minimal design: you can't pare this thing down, even if you try. It's all there because it has to be, and that what makes a great product.
You can of course spend a fortune on one of these things, but that would make you dumb. A good one costs $20 on Amazon. Twenty bucks to open every bottle of wine you'll ever drink? Cheers!
Image: Haragayato