Here’s your big chance to really embark on some showmanship that will impress your friends without going outside of the confines of good taste. Using a large knife to open a bottle of Champagne, or sabering as it’s known, is actually surprisingly simple and most people nail it easily on their first try, as long as they do it the right way. The goal when opening wine with a sword is to add some extra flair to the ritual of foil unwrapping, twist off wire, turn cork. I’m having second thoughts, since opening Champagne is one of life’s simple pleasures, and the technique is risky for the valuable bubbly inside that inevitably gets spilled, but sabering is worth trying at least once. The actual technique is simple. Remove the foil and wire cork harness, the hold the bottle about 30 degrees up with the cork away from you. There is a seam of glass on the bottle that runs from bottle base to cork; this seam should be facing the ceiling. Running your big knife or wine sabre along the seam in a swift motion and following through the cork should pop the entire top right off the Champagne. Congratulations, Happy New Year!
Watching an instructional video would definitely be prudent, I like this one because of the belt tie-on adding some inadvertent geekiness to the process.
