TGIF! Is Friday the 13th no longer a thing? Or am I just out of touch? Maybe I’m just lucky and it doesn’t apply to me.

Survival – Personal Edition

Let’s discuss wine. Ok, wine bottles. Ok, more specifically, wine bottle corks. They’re great! Until you’re trying to open a bottle and it breaks. Disaster! Not really, just use these tips to extract that life saving and affirming juice.

• If the cork is otherwise fine and only broke because of your ham-fisted us of a corkscrew, consider it a whole cork, and try again. Except this time, you’ll need to slow everything down. Screw in the corkscrew slowly to avoid further damage. Slowly and steadily pull the cork out. Jerking the on the cork will only increase the likelihood of cork breakage.
• If the cork is pushed too far into the bottle, finish the job and push it all the way into the bottle. Then jump below to the straining tips.
• If the cork itself is in bad shape or it’s stuck to the side of the bottle it may not be possible to extract it. In this case, use the cork as a drill to make a whole through the cork. To do this, use the corkscrew as normal but wiggle side to side to make an actual hole. Continue until the whole is large enough to pour the wine through.
• Now, we need to strain the wine. Unless you like chewing on chucks of cork as part of your tasting experience. You’ll need cheesecloth (clean, unwaxed, unbleached), a rubber band, and a decanter. A coffee filter (unbleached) can also be substituted. Place the cheesecloth or filter over the mouth of the decanter and secure it tightly with the rubber band.
• Pour the wine from the bottle through the filter into the decanter. When done, remove the cheesecloth and cork bits from the decanter.

Now let that freed wine breath if needed, or serve up. Either way that dastardly cork didn’t stop you from your wine. Enjoy!

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Survival – Species Edition

Time to put the sexy in Friday!

Enjoy the weekend, folks! Alright, now let’s get to the comments!