The Many Types Of Bottle Openers

By Author: Stam Bett
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The bottle opener: such a simple device, when you think about it, but would you believe there are many styles available to buy? Some are very distinct, like the wall-mounted bottle opener that's often found in a bar. While styles vary, they all share the basic function of opening bottles by catching the underside of a cap and using a fulcrum to exert enough force to pop the cap.

Simple Bottle Openers
The most basic bottle opener you can buy is just a piece of metal with a round opening at one end with a wide enough handle to hold between your fingers. The opening has a slight lip to place under the edge of the bottle cap and pulling the metal upward applies force. These bottle openers are usually used as key fobs, too.

Speed Openers
These bottle openers are small, flat blades of steel only 16 centimeters long with a thumb hole on one side and a letterbox cut on the other. These openers remove crown seals from a bottle while the thumb hole removes bottles from ice by simply placing the hole over the bottle's neck and lifting. These bottle openers are usually used by bartenders.

Wall-Mounted ...
... Bottle Openers
These bottle openers are large and may be stylish or branded and are often found behind a pub in a bar. Once the bottle cap is removed, it falls into the bottle cap catcher mounted just under the opener for retrieval.

Plastic Water Bottle Opener
While you're probably familiar with the regular bottle openers that open beer bottles, if you have arthritis you may be in search of a plastic bottle opener, or something that will even help you open pull-top cans. A plastic bottle opener is a very unique style of bottle opener and there are very few companies that produce them. The biggest name in this game is Magic Opener, which produces a line of Magic Opener plastic bottle openers that open not only water bottles but soda cans, beer bottles, easy lift tabs, pull rings and pop tops for people who have difficulty using a traditional bottle opener.

Crown Cork Opener
This specific type of bottle opener is also called a churchkey and it was invented at the same time as the crown cork, the very first type of bottle cap invented in 1892. These bottle openers are portable but they do not open wine bottles.

Wine Bottle Openers
Wine bottles require a different type of bottle opener, and there are many styles of these as well. One well-known style is called a waiter's friend, or wine key, and it looks a lot like a Swiss army knife with a lever and a corkscrew with a small knife to remove the foil top on a wine bottle. A cork master, on the other hand, is used by businesses with high volume to reduce breakage and waste. These wine bottle openers have a large brass tube that's fixed at a 45-degree angle with a lever that pivots halfway and extends toward the bartender. The neck of the bottle is inserted and the lever is pulled down to drive in a corkscrew into the cork at a regular depth.

The last type of wine bottle opener is the twin prong cork puller, or the butler's friend, which looks like a key with a squared handle and twin metal strips that slide between the cork and the bottle on either side. Once the strips are in place, the handle is turned to create friction that turns the cork and pulls it out.

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