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Opening a Beer Bottle With a Lighter


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Even more handy is to open one beer bottle with another. Similar to lighter in principle, just use the side edge of another's cap where the lighter should be. Learned this one as a bartender. Handy for those times when no opener ... and no lighter. :wink:

Edited by Damian (log)
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Even more handy is to open one beer bottle with another.  Similar to lighter in principle, just use the side edge of another's cap where the lighter should be.  Learned this one as a bartender.  Handy for those times when no opener ... and no lighter. :wink:

Or, if you have an old Carta Blanca bottle, you just put the bottom of one on top of the cap of the other and open.

I'm hollywood and I approve this message.

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Once you get the hang of this you'll be surprised how easy it is. Its one of the most valueable things I learned in college:

I'm right handed, so I grip the bottle with my left. Wrap your hand around the bottle so that your thumb and forefinger are flush with the top of the bottle cap. Take the lighter and wedge it underneath the edge of the cap by pushing down on the fleshy part of the bottom knuckle of your forefinger. Grip tightly enough so that your hand doesn't slide down the bottle as you pry the cap off using that fleshy part as the fulcrum of your "lever".

Piece of cake...

peak performance is predicated on proper pan preparation...

-- A.B.

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so what do you do if you have only one bottle of beer, no lighter, either no teeth or specific threats from your dentist that prohibit you from trying your teeth? and of course, no bottle opener?

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut." -Ernest Hemingway

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When no one is looking, and presuming the furniture isn't yours, place the edge of the cap on edge of a sturdy table (preferably a very expensive antique piece), and give it a good whack with your hand. Cap should pop right off. The edge of the table will end up with a good sized indentation or it might chip off altogether.

peak performance is predicated on proper pan preparation...

-- A.B.

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When no one is looking, and presuming the furniture isn't yours, place the edge of the cap on edge of a sturdy table (preferably a very expensive antique piece), and give it a good whack with your hand. Cap should pop right off. The edge of the table will end up with a good sized indentation or it might chip off altogether.

I've seen people use the edge of a table. (tried it, but the table was particle board...it didn't work, but there was a nice bite-size chunk out of the table...conversation piece).

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut." -Ernest Hemingway

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When no one is looking, and presuming the furniture isn't yours, place the edge of the cap on edge of a sturdy table (preferably a very expensive antique piece), and give it a good whack with your hand. Cap should pop right off. The edge of the table will end up with a good sized indentation or it might chip off altogether.

I fucked up some dude's counter real good at a party a few months back.

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I fucked up some dude's counter real good at a party a few months back.

and all cuz you didn't know how to use a lighter. at least now you won't have that problem.

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut." -Ernest Hemingway

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Once you get the hang of this you'll be surprised how easy it is. Its one of the most valueable things I learned in college:

I'm right handed, so I grip the bottle with my left. Wrap your hand around the bottle so that your thumb and forefinger are flush with the top of the bottle cap. Take the lighter and wedge it underneath the edge of the cap by pushing down on the fleshy part of the bottom knuckle of your forefinger. Grip tightly enough so that your hand doesn't slide down the bottle as you pry the cap off using that fleshy part as the fulcrum of your "lever".

Piece of cake...

On New Year's eve, just a couple of weeks ago, I saw this lighter method utilized for the first time ever. (Unlike you, I learned absolutely nothing useful in college.) The combination wine-and-beer bottle opener the hostess supplied us with had been cleverly altered by, I presume, pranksters such that it simply could not be manipulated so as to open a beer bottle. When some guy pulled out a lighter and opened a beer bottle with it, I was astounded. It seemed to me, for a moment, as though its practicioner was the most brilliant man I had ever met. Later, I learned he was actually an idiot savant, and that this was his only talent.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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