Bartending/Equipment/Utensils/Bottle opener

The lever mechanism of opening a traditional crown cap bottle is simple enough, although its applications into professional bartending have varied in implementation significantly. Today there are a wide variety of bottle openers and they can vary in function and fashion distinctly. Each design can provide advantages to its target work place and staff particularly with regards to speed of service.

Bottle Openers

Standard Bottle Opener

At some point or another we have all come across the simple bottle opener. It's hard not to find one on just about any functional accessory these days. The design is simple and it's often easy to miss on your decorative keyring or new kitchen utensil. In a professional context the simple bottle openers don't have much of a place as they tend to be designed for domestic use only.

Waiter's Friend

A waiter's friend is a strange swiss army knife looking contraption that every waiter will know and most bartenders will have heard of. It is effectively an all in one bottle opener with each component fold-able out of the handle as and when it's needed. The small blade arm is designed to slice the plastic or paper covering from the rim of wine bottles. The corkscrew is used to pull out the cork and on some pieces the simple bottle opener doubles up as a lever to aid in the decorking of wine bottles.

Bar Blade

The bar blade or 'speed opener' is one of the most useful pieces of equipment to any bartender. It's sturdy and long design allows for effortless bottle opening through lever action and is easily pocketed after use. The clean cut edges of the blade itself also make it a useful tool for slicing through packing tape and prying open boxes of stock. It's not uncommon to be told that if the blade is not soaked in alcohol by the end of the shift, the bartender hasn't been working very hard. It is the most widely used design in professional bartending worldwide and is often used for a number popular bartending tricks.

Wall Mounted & Magnetic Openers

Wall mounted and magnetic openers are a recent invention that allows a standard bottle opener to be attached to a vertical or horizontal surface. This makes the opener static and a go-to point on the bar for bottle opening. Some models have a magnetic catch attachment where the caps are automatically collected after being popped.

Miscellaneous Bottle Openers

There a a number of alternate ways to open bottles that are now obsolete in light of recent implementations of the lever design although some old models are retained for sentimental purposes. A churchkey is a prime example of such a model that is somewhat outdated but is still widely collected and in some places still manufactured today.

A cork puller is an example of another form of outdated wine bottle opener but is now no longer used professionally apart from certain select establishments.