Best for Most People Hicoup Wine Opener After a lifetime of using basic waiter’s corkscrews—including a solid chunk of my twenties, whilst employed as a waiter—I’d come to think of them as sort of being all the same. With dozens of devices in this style available, you might naturally reach a similar conclusion, but that would be a mistake. HiCoup, a family-owned kitchenware brand based in Toronto, makes my single favorite waiter’s corkscrew on the market, with the better-known Le Creuset brand corkscrew ($44) as a close runner-up.
With this style of corkscrew you pretty much know what you’re getting yourself into—a simple three-part mechanism employing a hinge, worm, and knife that can be cleanly packed up and into a waiter’s apron (or kitchen junk drawer) between uses. I think it’s fair then to take into account things like how the object feels in your hand and how much it costs. Both the HiCoup and the Le Creuset employ a wire atop the hinge to create a springlike motion as you brace the device, and both use a metal worm, but the Le Creuset’s handle is a silver-coated plastic that feels loose and cheap.
The HiCoup, meanwhile, is made entirely of solid metal with a wood handle that has nice grip detailing. Its knife is nice and sharp, whereas the Le Creuset knife was too dull to cleanly cut a label. At just $17, this corkscrew costs less than an entry-level bottle of Bourgogne, compared to the Le Creuset, which runs over twice as much.
Better to save mone.
