A dear friend has made the request that I participate in her wedding in one small way: sabre a mag of bubbles and serve to the wedding party before the toast…
I’m excited to do this for her – however that leads me to the question of what I should use. At home I just use the spine of an inexpensive a meat cleaver, which works great. However I’d rather not travel and walk into a wedding with an edged implement in tow.
Before I just grab an inexpensive Laguole-style sabre on Ebay (which isn’t sharpened), I’m interested to hear if anyone else has another idea of what to use – which won’t scare the public in transit.
I picked up an Italian-made, buffalo horn Del Ben sabre off of MyHabit earlier this year for 90% off. It’s a stunning thing, and makes my sabreing very classy.
That being said, as others have suggested, you really could use just about anything to sabre; however, unless you’re going deep ironic by using something like a vibrator, the sword or a large knife is the way to go.
Since you use the spine of the knife (the thickest part) and not the tip or sharp end, use any knife with a decent spine. Key is getting the neck of the bottle real cold and preparing the cage . . .
This has become a dangerous exercise – after some searching I found a local company that seems to be one of the largest importer of Champagne Sabres in the US – Sonoma Champagne Sabres.
I had no plans of spending more than $100 – then I saw this…
I have a hand-made sword that I bought in Thailand…it’s got a teak handle, teak sheath, and looks like something that’s more decorative than anything else. Works for what I want!
I wouldn’t think this is a novelty around here, I’ve done it many times and never had an issue. My avatar is from my wedding after I sabred a mag for our wedding party. The only essential is making sure the neck is cold enough - nothing less than 15 minutes in an ice bucket. Once the neck is cold, my meat cleaver has been a ‘can’t miss’ tool for the job - I just started the thread wondering if someone here was using an implement that was less likely to scare the general public.
I’d be willing to bet a large sum of cash that 99.9% of the mishaps you see on Youtube happened because A) the bottle wasn’t cold, or B) they used cheap bubbly that didn’t come in a standard champagne bottle (thicker glass). I’m not about to stop using my miter saw for home improvement projects because some idiot injured himself while using one incorrectly.
I know of people who have had the bottle break and cut their hand. I’ve done it a half a dozen times with good luck. I decent kitchen knife if fine. Anyone know the origin of the sabre? I think I do.
Frank from Sonoma Champagne Sabres happened to be in town for the Sonoma Harvest Festival on Saturday so we met up. 30 minutes later I was home with a Mathusalem Sciabola del Sommelier in my possession…and it worked perfectly on Sunday with a bottle of Domaine Carneros.
Frank does a lot of Sabrage exhibitions and it was interesting to get his take on what is typically the cause of bottles shattering. He said that the only time he’s ever had a bottle shatter that had been chilled correctly was when he was doing a demo with a bottles of Chandon – it actually happened twice. He says that the quality of the glass is just as important as proper chilling. He said that they only use Korbel or Gloria Ferrer for inexpensive demos because both producers use nice, thick glass.
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