Metrokane Rabbit Wine Opener Tool Kit, Silver
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List Price: Our Price: $51.95 You Save: $58.05 (53%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $45.00 (click here) Category: Kitchen See more product details |
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Metrokane Rabbit Wine Opener Tool Kit, Silver
Customer Review: How to use the Metrokane Rabbit
Summary: 4 Stars
From a design standpoint, this is a very good product. But the documentation is pathetic, and was clearly never tested with new / real users. There is no explanation of how it's supposed to work. That understanding is very helpful: with it, you'll never have trouble, and will marvel at the clever design. Let's get started.
Have a bottle of wine handy on which you've already used the supplied (and very good) little foil cutter to remove the foil over the cork.
Take the unit in your hand and look at the movable parts. The overhead lever that swings outward / downward and then is reversed / brought back over the top - moves the spiral corkscrew up and down. To see this, operate the overhead lever with one hand while holding the clamping "side handles" with the other. When you move the overhead handle the corkscrew rotates.
Why is the corkscrew turning? Because it's forced to do that as it goes through a "guide" (the metal collar with gray plastic center). The gray plastic piece has an internal spiral track that forces the corkscrew to rotate as it passes through.
Here's the critical point: as long as the guide mechanism is locked in place and can't move up or down, the guide forces the corkscrew to rotate when going through.
What if this guide were locked in place on the `down-stroke,' but could move vertically on the `up-stroke'? Then the guide would force the corkscrew to rotate on the way down (so the corkscrew would penetrate the cork), but the guide would stay attached to (and _not_ rotate) the corkscrew on the way up - thus pulling the cork.
When the unit is operated correctly this is exactly what happens. But how?
Look more closely: Before using the Rabbit's `side-handles' to hold the wine bottle neck, the guide is locked in place by two protruding spring-loaded latches and can't move vertically. Try it: it won't budge. (You can actually see these small latches projecting over the top of the guide and keeping it from moving - by looking in the area above and to the far rear of the guide, near the smooth rod.)
On the other hand, when the clamping handles are squeezed onto the neck of a bottle, these latches above the guide _retract_, releasing their hold on the guide so it can move upward.
Do this now: Take your bottle of wine and, with the overhead lever rotated to its fully outward / downward position, place the guide directly over the cork and grip the neck of the bottle _firmly_ with the clamping side handles.
Look at the latches described above: they have retracted, and no longer restrain the guide from moving upward. This has no effect during the down-stroke / cork penetration phase, since the guide is already as low as it can go. Because the guide can't move, it forces the corkscrew to rotate when you operate the overhead lever - thus penetrating the cork. Perform this down-stroke.
Now watch what happens when the overhead lever is pulled back to withdraw the cork (while you at the same time continue to grip the bottle neck firmly with the side levers). Because the guide can now move vertically with the corkscrew, it imposes no rotation on the corkscrew. The corkscrew stays inside the cork as the overhead lever is moved outward / downward, and the cork is extracted. Do it. You now have the cork out of the bottle, suspended above the bottle neck, and are still gripping the side handles around the bottle neck.
Release your hold on the side handles and move the Rabbit away from the bottle. The cork is still attached to the corkscrew. Re-grip the side handles with one hand and once again operate the overhead lever, bringing it all the way back to its fully closed position again (as if you were on the original down-stroke into the cork).
As you get to the very end of the stroke, you will feel resistance and will hear a click: the latches have snapped back into place over the top of the guide, locking it in place. The guide is once again `captured' - and cannot move vertically. The cork is still attached to the corkscrew.
Finally, move the overhead lever back yet again to its fully open position (as if pulling the cork from the bottle). This time the latches _don't_ retract (because you're not using the side handles to grip the bottle neck) - so the latches again keep the guide from moving, and this forces the corkscrew to rotate `in reverse' as it passes upward through the guide. The corkscrew backs out of the cork and the cork drops off. It takes all of a few seconds once you get the hang of it.
Understanding the operating principles should help. None of this is well explained (or, indeed, explained at all) in the almost non-existent documentation.
Steve Ferris
Customer Review: Easiest corkscrew ever!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I could *not* believe my eyes the first time I saw someone use a Rabbit. I've shredded SO many corks and even broken bottles trying to get corks out. I've tried so many different kinds of corkscrews (and the two-pronged non-screw-type cork-pullers), and I've been all kinds of frustrated. I'm a big and strong guy, and I've still been frustrated at how hard some corkscrews are to use.Enter the Rabbit. It's hard to visualize from the picture, but it is SUPER-EASY, once you figure it out.
1) Flip the top over, away from the cork, raising the screw (sometimes called the "worm")
2) Place the two handles on either side of the bottle-neck, positioning the tip of the worm over the cork.
3) Squeeze the handles together to hold the bottle.
4) Bring the top handle up and over, which pushes the worm into the cork -- so easy you can't believe it.
5) Take the top handle back to where it started, and the cork is out! No muss, no fuss, no cuss!
They say removing the cork from the worm is just as easy, but it's not quite. The method for this is:
6) Bring the top handle back over, as if to put the cork back in the bottle, only without the bottle there.
7) Squeeze the side handles around/on the cork.
8) Bring the top handle back away to remove the worm, while holding the cork with the side handles.
That works, but the side handles don't always squeeze tight enough to hold the cork there.
Okay, the ad says "3 seconds". I put closer to ten seconds, plus five more to remove the cork (if it grips right), or 30 seconds more if it doesn't grip the cork to remove it. Still, this is the easiest and best corkscrew I've ever used, and I'd say it's WELL worth the price. The "gift set" is nice, but personally, I don't think it's worth the extra price compared to just the Rabbit without the gift set. I do, however, recommend the Metrokane "Save-the-Wine" Vacuum Pump.
Oh, one more thing -- I've heard it doesn't work well on the new plastic-style "corks", but I haven't tried it.
Customer Review: a bit excessive,but a cute gift
Summary: 3 Stars
All you really need here is the corkscrew, but the other bits-foil cutter, stopper ecc. do make a more imposing gift. Be aware that the increased number of moving parts means that the Rabbit (and all its kin) are more likely to break than the simpler corkscrews.
Wine used to be stored in wood and sold by the pitcher, or bucket-full. Strong glass bottles came along in England in the 1660's. At first, they were stoppered with glass, each stopper being ground individually to fit its bottle and then tied in place. Uniform plugs of cork gradually replaced the custom-tailored glass. The cork, exported from Portugal, was inserted for half its length in the bottleneck, and the consumer twisted it out.
The corkscrew appeared a few years later, at the end of the century, and corks could then be driven flush with the bottle's neck.
We are a people with too much time on our hands so it's not surprising that we have generated at least a hundred variations on the corkscrew. The only thing that matters is this: the business end of a corkscrew, called the worm, should be a wire formed in a spiral. (See illustration.) Corkscrews with stamped worms that resemble wood screws should be rejected, shunned, even anathematized. Here's why. The wire displaces the least amount of cork and gives the greatest amount of lifting surface. The stamped worm drills a hole in the cork and offers only its edges for lift. If the cork is old, or soft, this latter arrangement can leave you with a half a crumbled cork in the bottle. The wire is slim and makes a spiral that's wide enough to slip a paper match inside. The tip is pointed and sharp.
For more information, try reading New Short Course in Wine,The
Customer Review: LOVED IT THEN HATED IT
Summary: 1 Stars
Don't waste your time on this company.
My first Rabbit had a plastic handle. When it broke after several years of use, I replaced it with a metal handle Rabbit because it had 10-year warrantee. (I think the first one had a 2-year warrantee.)
The new Rabbit malfunctioned. A mission-critical piece of rubber tore, making the Rabbit useless. I sent the Rabbit to Metrokane per the package instructions. (I paid the postage and also had to enclose a check to cover *their* mailing costs.)
A week or so later, my Rabbit was returned to me without any repairs. Their note said that they couldn't find anything wrong with the thing. I phoned Metrokane to complain. They said that the rubber was not covered by the warrantee. I was told to get rubber glue to fix the thing. I checked the warrantee. Nowhere does it say that certain parts are not covered. Finally they agreed to replace it.
The replacement was defective. The Metrokane rep. copped an attitude when I complained, saying that I was probably using it incorrectly. (Remember, I'd owned a Rabbit and had used it for years, so I'm sure I knew how to use it.)
The company wouldn't send another Rabbit and I refused to spend more money to return the second defective product. I'm using a $10 knock-off now. It works every time.
Customer Review: Buy a rabbit type opener, but not this one
Summary: 3 Stars
I have two rabbit type openers and my parents have one as well. I also have the Oster electric wine opener. The Oster is easy/nice but the grinding electric sound doesn't exactly project elegance when that is the need, you know what I mean.
First, I feel I paid $20 more to have a wax remover (only wax remover I need is for my ears) and the dorky drip stopper/bib for wine bottles. Everybody I know knows enough to slow at the end of the pour and do a 1/4 spin on the bottle to prevent drips. The other items...come standard on all others, the foil cutter and extra screw.
The 2nd thing is the handles are PAINTED PLASTIC. Horrible material to make a lever out of (you squeeze the handles to keep the bottle in place). Granted you can open the bottle without breaking the handles but I have to be concious about not applying too much pressure. I could easily snap the handles if I wanted to in a second. As it is now, I can feel the handles bend. The other two rabbit openers have metal handles and feel extremely solid and both cost less than $20. My gf did state that she likes this one better though because it's lighter than the other two but I look at it from an engineering/design/quality standpoint.
The Pinzon Matte Chrome plated opener is the one to get, unless you want a $20 wax remover...