The corks are used in some types of beverages, mainly came and champagne. To extract them from bottle it takes a corkscrew, but we don’t always have one on hand. How to remove a cork without a corkscrew?
Almost everyone has a corkscrew at home, most of the cheap ones that, let’s face it, are not very resistant. Pulling out a cork takes a lot of force, and sometimes the corkscrew’s grip breaks.
On other occasions, we never remember where we have saved it. Or maybe you’re in a casual situation where a bottle of wine needs to be opened, but there’s no corkscrew handy. Luckily, the French winery Maison Mirabeau reveals a curious trick that, in addition to being very simple to apply, works perfectly.
To pull out a cork without a corkscrew… take off your shoe
If you want open a bottle of wine (we don’t know if it works with champagne, but in theory it does), you don’t need a corkscrew, no knives, screws, or other tools. All you need is a wall… and take off the shoe.
Put the bottle inside the shoe, with the bottom of the bottle at the heel. Now simply hit the wall with your heel, holding the bottle so that it is always in contact with the shoe.
Give several dry blows in a row, and the cork will move completely, until it finally comes out of the bottle. In this video you can see it graphically:
As you can see, it is a very simple and practical method. The sole of the shoe cushions the blow so that the bottle is not damaged. But be careful not to spill the wine, or damage the wall…
There are many other methods to open a bottle of wine without a corkscrew, but they require tools. Here we have collected a few:
- push the cork in. It is the most popular solution in these cases, although not the most convenient, since the remains of the cork can fall into the glasses when serving it. You can push the cork with any instrument: the tip of a screwdriver, a butter knife, the handle of a spoon… If you have coffee filters, use them to serve the wine and prevent cork residue from falling into the glasses.
- use a screw. Insert the screw into the cork but not all the way, leave about half a centimeter out. Then, use the clevis of a hammer, a fork, or any other instrument that allows you to gain leverage, and pull hard to remove the cork.
- use scissors. Open the scissors and stick one of the blades about halfway through the cork. Then, grab the scissors where the two blades meet and pull up little by little so that the cork comes out.
As we see, take a cork of one wine bottle without corkscrew it’s simple. The most “professional” way to do it, with the shoeas the Maison Mirabeau winery shows us, is the one we liked the most.