The Descorjet ... ‘The ear trumpet of a Bourbon monarch.’ Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

Kitchen gadgets review: Descorjet champagne opener – an Etch A Sketch of a Caravaggio

This article is more than 7 years old

This stoppered funnel levers the cork out of a champagne bottle with quiet efficiency, but what’s a night out without a spuming climax or two?

What?

The Descorjet champagne opener is a stoppered funnel with levered clasp. Applied to the neck of a champagne bottle, the clasp guides the cork upward on to a firm spring, for extraction and retention.

Why?

Ceeeelebrate good times, come on! But use your indoors voice. And leave by 9pm.

Well?

Hiya! Did you have a good New Year’s Eve? Of course not, it’s the worst night of the year. This one in particular was like finally punching the airlock that flushes the alien into space. Cause for celebration, sure, but the kind of celebration that involves lying in a crumpled heap on the floor trying to remember how to breathe. Because 2016 was a turd, wasn’t it? A vintage year for turd connoisseurs, in fact. A glass-cased artefact of ur-turdery, inaugurating a new era of crapola. When welcoming in a year that – pardon my French – may not be any better, we should exercise a little caution.

Rhik Samadder tests kitchen gadgets. Champagne bottle opener. London. Photograph by David Levene 3/1/17 — Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

Such was my thinking when I beheld the Descorjet. It’s a safer, easier way to open champagne; good news for the 12% of the population who are injured every year popping corks. (Although a significant proportion of them must work in fashion or Formula One, and I think it’s how they would want to go.) It’s sturdy in the hand and beautiful in its way – a silver- and gold-plated bugle, the ear trumpet of a Bourbon monarch. It governs with a repressive economy, too. Place bottle in funnel, squeeze handle and the cork is nursed from its neck with ease. It’s silent – the only evidence of jubilation is the dull recoil in my forearm. Rather than shooting off, the cork is fixed in the device. It’s as if someone has fitted a pistol with a silencer, then thrown away the pistol. I tried it at midnight earlier this week, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the moment felt flat. Sad, efficient and monochrome, the Descorjet is an Etch A Sketch of a Caravaggio. You don’t necessarily need a spuming climax to make a night, but it doesn’t go amiss. Brave the flying corks. Embracing risk is another way of saying: choose optimism. As with opening a bottle, so it is opening a new year, or choosing our political future; the best thing to do is aim higher.

Redeeming features?

Owning a gadget specifically to crack the bubbly stuff suggests life isn’t going badly.

Counter, drawer, back of the cupboard?

If you’re going to have champagne, don’t have a sham celebration. 3/5

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