6X Torque Corkscrew is a wine opener on a crank

Colin Joliat Staff Writer

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There is apparently no place in the world for basic wine keys anymore. This “6X Torque Corkscrew” is the latest in a long line of extravagant devices meant to simply get a cork out of a bottle of wine.

Hammacher Schlemmer

This is the corkscrew that provides 6X more torque than typical wine openers to enable easy cork removal. Similar to an automobile’s automatic transmission, the corkscrew uses a planetary gear design: a central “sun” gear spins three “planet” gears to enable extraction of the cork with minimal exertion from the user. Turning the handle clockwise quickly plunges the worm into the center of the cork and turning it counterclockwise extracts it with little effort, thanks to the 6:1 gear ratio and durable stainless steel gears.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t need automobile technology to open a bottle of wine. A simple corkscrew is more than enough for me, and I can think of quite a few things I’d rather spend $70 on than a superscrew. Then again, I’m sure there’s someone out there that really wants to crank that Beaujolais.

Hammacher Schlemmer