Cravenly lose first of series - boozing essential (6-6)
I believe the answer is:
bottle-opener
'boozing essential' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot see how one could define the other.
'cravenly lose first of series' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'first' could be 'opener' (I've seen this before) and 'opener' is present in the answer.
'of' could be 'o' and 'o' is located in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for bottle-opener that I've seen is " Device for removing caps and corks".)