While cleaning out my apartment the other day, I tripped across a stash of my old photography supplies for manual B/W film processing. In that pile, I found a standard-issue can punch/bottle opener that I had used to pry open film canisters in the darkroom. I cleaned it off and dismissively tossed it into a drawer with my other bottle openers. But a day later, I needed to open a can of chicken broth and annoyingly, my local store doesn’t carry the ones with the pop-top. I was reaching for my manual hand-crank style can opener when I remembered the punch – two quick holes and I was in business. Not only is it faster, but it is also much easier to clean, being a simple piece of metal, without the handles, gears, etc. It’s since graduated to my quick-grab drawer of utility gadgets.
Norpro has the classic steel can punch/bottle opener similar to the one I have – it’s about a buck on Amazon. Oxo, of course, has their own reengineered version ($7), which has a soft inset for better grip comfort.