For those of you who enjoy cooking or fishing, you will appreciate the importance of a well sharpened knife or a well honed hook and their effectiveness. The same applies to the worm. That is the worm on your corkscrew.

That tightly coiled metal on your wine opener that is inserted into the cork is actually called the “WORM”. If the pointed end of the worm is kept sharpened it will more easily penetrate the cork, especially the solid synthetic ones that are not unlike hard pieces of extruded plastic.

For those of you who do not have a honing stone, here is a simply way to keep your worm sharp.

Take an everyday ceramic coffee cup, turn it upside down and you will notice that it has an “unglazed” or “rough” finish on the bottom. Simply rub the tip of the worm back and forth along the rough edges. Make sure to rotate the worm so as to hone all sides to a sharpened point. This is also a great method for sharpening knives in a pinch.

Even better: use the unglazed side of an old ceramic tile that you may have lying around from an old household project. I find it easier with a tile because of the completely flat unglazed back allows you to more freely move the worm at different angles.

Remember, it must be ceramic.

Try it, I have, and it works great! Give it a go and let me know how it works for you.

Cheers!