This is Lawrence Guo from San Leandro, California. On Tuesday he was hanging out with a friend when he tried opening a bottle of rosé and the corkscrew broke.
Guo recalled watching a video on YouTube about alternative ways to uncork wine. One of the "hacks" involved taking a blowtorch to the neck of the bottle. And while this one isn't the one he watched, there are plenty of similar YouTube videos and social media posts.
View this video on YouTube
Guo told BuzzFeed News they first tried it with a lighter, but since the flame was not strong enough, they went with...the kitchen stove.
And on a low-medium heat, he and his friend slowly tilted the neck of the bottle toward the flame...
...and, well, spoiler alert: It did not work. In fact, it turned out to be a very dangerous attempt at uncorking anything.
YOUTUBE U LIED!!! I almost died 🤬
As you can see, a stove top wasn't exactly a proper substitute for a blowtorch used in a controlled setting, for a controlled amount of time, in those YouTube "hack" videos. And the results were disastrous.
"I expected the cork to come out of the neck of the bottle before the glass exploded," Guo said. "I assumed it may have been from thermal shock and glass molecules expanded at a high rate due to the heat, or from the vapor pressure build-up from the liquid 'cause there was some condensation on the bottle at the top."
Extremely fortunately, Guo and his friend did not sustain any serious injuries. The bottle did, however, shatter immediately in half. "We were like, 'Holy crap,'" he said.
The lesson is fairly apparent here. But in Guo's own words, "I would advise not to do it on a stove."
"We tried everything we could to open it, but the cork wouldn’t budge," he said, adding, "I would advise to wear some better protective gear covering vital body parts if this were to be replicated."