If you’ve ever wanted to introduce a misbehaving corkscrew to the business end of a firearm (I think anyone who’s ever snapped a cork in half when opening a bottle can identify with this feeling), then you’re not actually too far off from one of that tool’s original uses.

That corkscrews may have derived from implements used to pull unspent musket material from rile barrels is just one of the fascinating tidbits I picked up in researching my latest piece for PUBLIX Grape Magazine, titled “The Art of the Corkscrew,” which is appearing in their Spring 2014 issue.

Yes, Spring. Yes, really. I know that most of you who are, like me, on the East Coast (or are reading this from the northern Midwest U.S.) have probably, after this hellish Winter season, ceased believing in the memory of Spring, and chalked its flowers, rain showers, and warm, Sunny days up to a vague, pre-ice-age fantasy. But I can assure you that it has, in fact, actually and for-real arrived. Sort of. I think.

Anyway, if you’re in the PUBLIX sphere of shopping, you can pick up a printed copy of the issue for free (or subscribe for delivery), and get your geek hat on to learn a few surprising things about one of the world’s only tools that’s essentially designed to open one and only one product (a fact that, in and of itself, puts the wine world into a kind of odd, anachronistic light, doesn’t it?), along with all kinds of other interesting wine-and-drinks-and-food-related content. My article also includes a guide to the most common corkscrew types, along with hints on how to best use them (which you, of course, don’t need, because you’re a way-cool bad-ass who’s never, ever, not-even-once ripped a cork in half when trying to open a bottle of vino… yeah… right…).

Cheers!