11 Ways To Open Wine And Beer Bottles Without An Opener

It's happened to everyone at some point. Drunk or sober, defective cork or not, you have had to get into a bottle of wine or beer without breaking the bottle. While cork and cap technology is great for keeping the wine or beer in, it can also thwart any attempt to get it out if you don't happen to have an opener. Picnickers, campers, and all sorts of folks have had to contend with this, and how they get to the liquid isn't always pretty. Before there was a cork or cap, how did people get into their drink of choice?

Human beings have been drinking wine for about 10,000 years. In the good old days, Neolithic, Phoenician, Greek, and Roman winemakers used clay amphorae to store and move their wine about. Pottery was a fragile medium and broke easily, but there were other challenges, too. The shape was awkward to maneuver and the amphorae were so heavy when filled that they had to be moved with a cart or a beast of burden. Beer was slightly different. For centuries, it was made by the woman of the house, brewed when needed and stored in clay jars in small amounts, or later, in barrels when larger quantities were needed.

The invention of sturdy glass bottles was hastened in the 1600s, when coal burning furnaces were invented that could reach temperatures high enough (3,000 to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit) to fire thicker, sturdier glass that could travel well and didn't break easily. The Industrial Revolution made mass production of beer, wine, and bottles feasible and affordable. Corks and crown caps (the crimped metal caps) sealed the deal and made the glass bottle a very user-friendly and travel-friendly package.

Follow through to today, and we humans have come up with a lot of different ways to open a bottle of wine or beer when an opener is nowhere to be found.

If you are a real tool nut and you have a toolbox, you can channel your inner Tim "The Toolman" Taylor persona and open the wine bottle by using a screw, a screwdriver, and a hammer. Get a long screw (about 3 inches) with large threads (this will act as the worm) and stick the screw into the top of the cork to hold it in place. Then, use the appropriate screwdriver (Phillips or flathead) to screw it deeper into the cork. Leave about 1 inch of the screw sticking out of the cork, then grab your hammer. Place the head of the screw in the slit of the head of the hammer and slowly pull the cork out of the bottle by wedging the hammer head against the bottle or just pulling really hard. (Slow down at the end so you don't splash wine everywhere.)

If you don't have a saber or a makeshift corkscrew but the idea of leaving the cork in the bottle really bothers you, there is a solution. With some pushing and some twine or a shoelace, you can open a bottle of wine and remove the cork, too. Make a strong knot at one end of the string, making sure the string is long enough to go into the bottle past the cork. Using a small screwdriver or strong, thin tool, force the knotted end of the string into the bottle past the cork. (You can still make it work if you push the cork all the way in, but try not to.) Once you have the knot past the bottom of the cork, slowly but firmly pull on the string. The knot should pull the cork up through the neck and out of the bottle.

If you pushed the cork in and you want to get it out, it takes a little more work, but it's still possible. You'll need to put in a lot of string. Once you've done that, cover the mouth of the bottle firmly with your thumb, then flip the bottle upside down and back upright until you can get the knot of the string past the cork and then get the cork to float back into position near the neck of the bottle. Now you should be able to work the cork out by pulling on the string.

Yes, that's right, a shoe. Now, this is not recommended with an expensive bottle of wine or an expensive pair of shoes, for that matter. You should also probably skip this method if you are trying to impress your date or if a real wine connoisseur is present. However, sometimes, desperate situations call for desperate methods. You'll need at least three minutes, as well as a sturdy wall that won't be damaged under pressure and a relatively clean shoe with plenty of padding. If you have all that, then opening the bottle is just a matter of placing the bottle into the heel of the shoe, pounding on a solid wall slowly, and doing this long enough that the cork starts to come out of the bottle.

For a beer bottle, the process is different (unless you have some corked beer lying around). To open a beer bottle with your keys, firmly grab the neck of the beer bottle. Your fingers should be almost touching the cap. Then place the shaft of the key between your finger and the bottom edge of the cap. Leverage your key up under the rim of the cap, and it should pry the crimped edges away from the mouth of your precious bottle.

In the search for opener alternatives, there are plenty of urban myths, stories, and scary ways to get the job done, but some of us draw the line at knives, scissors, and other sharp objects. Sometimes, the easiest, safest, and most obvious methods get overlooked. Believe it or not, you can open one bottle of beer with another, whether the bottle you are using as the opener is still capped or already empty. This takes practice, but you simply hold the bottle to be opened on a sturdy surface and firmly grip the neck up near the edge. You then turn the second bottle upside down, use the side of that bottle's cap to wedge up underneath the first bottle's cap, and strongly pry upward on the cap of the bottle to be opened. With enough strength, it will snap right off and you can start drinking that nice, cold beer.

If you want to use an empty beer bottle as your opener, you bring the lip of the empty bottle under the edge of the cap, get your fingers situated firmly underneath to hold it in place, and then just pop it off as in the video above.