ThePortForum.com

Anyone have any experience with "Taylors Port Wine Tongs" as seen here: http://www.portwine.com/products/product3-1.htm
Are there better options available online?

I've no experience with these particular tongs. The only tongs I have ever used are the ones which are more like scissors in shape - you hold the handle of the tongs at rights angles to the neck of the bottle and not over the top of the bottle. I've used these quite successfully, most recently opening 4 bottles just before Christmas.

It's also relatively easy to get hold of tongs if you are able to visit Oporto. Most of the lodges have tongs for sale in their visitors shops. If you can't get to Oporto, it might be worth dropping an email to someone like the Graham's Lodge (e-mail: grahams@grahamsportlodge.com) and asking whether they have any for sale and whether they would be able to post them to you.

I don't like the stand over style tongs as much, but I know others feel the opposite. For me, the stand over style assume the bottle is dinner table height and I usually tong bottle on my kitchen counter. Secondly, it is much easier to touch the wax (which you don't want to do) withe stand over style. Either way, if you have one style or the other; you adapt.

If you are not using a hearth/fire to heat them up, get MAP gas torch. and do a "pre tong" to make sure it's going to line up or need further capsole removal before heating the tongs. Good luck!

mosesbotbol wrote:I don't like the stand over style tongs as much

Agreed, especially if heating them on a gas hob. The scissors style are far easier to lie down, on a flat object of suitable thickness, to be allowed to warm.