Laguiole Corkscrews

Zebu horn tip, juniper or snakewood

Juniper, from Mediterranean mountains, is the pale option: honey to blond, with brown veins and small knots, and a light peppery scent you may notice when you hold it. Snakewood owes its name to dark markings that resemble a snake's skin over brown to deep red wood, and it's polished to a shine. Zebu horn tip, the horn's solid point, is polished, and blond or amber tones run through its darker brown. For a wooden corkscrew, choose juniper for a pale handle or snakewood for a darker one, and anyone who prefers horn can opt for the zebu horn tip. To find out more about Laguiole en Aubrac, see The Manufacture.

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Watch the juniper corkscrew

A closer look at a waiter's friend with a pale juniper handle.

View this corkscrew

Waiter's friend, wine key or corkscrew?

Corkscrew is the broad word for anything with a worm that draws a cork, from winged models to the T-handle kind. A waiter's friend is one particular sort: it folds flat, with a foil cutter, the worm and a lever you rest on the bottle's rim. Americans tend to call the same tool a wine key, and in restaurants it's also known as a sommelier corkscrew, so all three names describe one design. Whatever you call it, every model on this page is that folding type, made by hand in France by Laguiole en Aubrac.

Plain or marquetry handles?

A handle in a single material puts the focus on its colour and grain, and it's the easy choice for a corkscrew you'll reach for most evenings. Marquetry handles combine several materials into a pattern, such as a chequerboard or a bunch of grapes, and they look the part on a sideboard or a home bar. Laguiole en Aubrac also makes marquetry in other patterns, so you can find a Laguiole corkscrew that suits a traditional table as well as a more colourful one.

Waiter's friend questions

Every corkscrew arrives with a guide to looking after it. Wash yours by hand, dry it thoroughly, and spare wood or horn handles the dishwasher.