Those of us who use(ed) the Swiss Army Knife or other camp folders have long endured the snide remarks about field useless corkscrews, can and bottle openers. Well for all you aficionados of epoxy powder covered short swords I submit the following survival scenario : A party, several bottles of pink champagne and no corkscrew <img src="images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

In best Homer Simpson voice, "D'Oh!, to the third power!" <img src="images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> <img src="images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

<img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Ah ... so, little grasshopper, what does one do now to fix the situation? <img src="images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

<img src="images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> I fail to see a problem here. Push a loop of the stainless steel wire that sits in your PSK down the bottle neck. Wiggle at bit to catch the cork and pull. Bottle is open <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />. If you don´t have the wire you might have to say "please, please, please" to someone who´s got some but doesn´t drink pink champagne.
For some strange reason nobody makes any snide remarks on any item I have in my PSK or EDC anyway <img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />.

With champagne there is no problem, just remove that safety wire tha holds the cork,shake the botle , POP!! FSSSSS!! there you go .

The situation gets more critic if instead of Dom Perignon you have several bottles of Sicilian" Duca di Salaparruta" or some Chilean Merlot of "Santa Rosa Del Peral".

Here even a run-of -the-mill Leatherman ( NOT the Flare) can help, by carefully using one of it's tools to carve away the cork or just to push it into the bottle ( been there...)


Cheers anyway and best wishes for 2003 A.C.

Well, you're right !!!
It's no laughing matter !

Here, in France, that's what we call a REAL EMERGENCY/SURVIVAL situation .. <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> ......
And that's why I have included a penknife WITH corkscrew in my french-EDC-urban-PSK .......

Concerning PSK and drinking matters, we do not rely on condoms (we prefer to use those for other purposes ........) <img src="images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />
Anyway, wine is only well kept in glass bottles ......!!.....

About champagne bottles, it's easy to open without removing the cork, if it is too hard to manually uncork :
just slide a somewhat heavy fork handle (for instance ; or the back of a heavy knife ...) along the bottle neck and hit the rim ( ?? is that the correct term ??). It should "explode" and champagne will flow freely ... that's called "sabrer la bouteille", in order to "sabler le champagne".


Alain

I've heard that you can un-cork a wine bottle with a knife blade (there was specific reference to the wave blades). any1 know how?

last edition in "trail" a walking mag in England-they showed you how to do it with shoe laces-i don't understand the diagrams-or i would explain-perhaps i'm just thick!!!!lol

Mark

As others have pointed out, you don't need (or want) a corkscrew for champagne. Doesn't matter, real men don't drink pink champagne... if, indeed, there really is such a thing.

For those who take their wine seriously, there are an assortment of traditional emergency techniques for getting into a bottle of "real" wine. One romantic one involves using the back of a sabre... probably harder to find than a corkscrew, these days, and it purportedly takes practice. Another involves a fire and a wet feather. You can, of course, always push the cork in, but that's at least inelegant.

For whatever it's worth, I always take TWO corkscrews when travelling. One has to prioritize one's survival gear, after all...

Not everyone knows it, but the Israeli Galil assault rifle has a bottlecap lifter built in, at the base of the bipod legs. Some German bayonets also had them.

In this case, I don't think it was so much an appreciation of proper priorities, as a resigned recognition that if you don't give the troops the tool, they'll use some other part of the mechanism...