2006-10-11

### How Napoleon opened champagne

[<img src="/space/jason_tesauro.jpg" style="float: right; margin-left: 10px" />
](http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/120705/sssaber.html)


Last night, a
[few](http://myspace.com/beckstar_805)
[of](http://kodiak.brainymonkey.com/)
[us](http://cs.stanford.edu/~nstoll/)
went out to
[Bubble Lounge](http://bubblelounge.com/sfabout.shtml)
for some champagne,
[music](http://www.antioquiaband.com/), and...yeah, mostly just champagne. We
knew it would be a good night, but it turned out to be a _great_ night
after we saw the [historian](http://kodiak.brainymonkey.com/) of the group
whispering to our server with a glint in his eye.

We didn't think much of it until our server brought our second bottle of
champagne, upside down in a bucket of ice, and whipped out a small sword. It
was a sabre, which he proceeded to use to chop off the neck of the champagne
bottle, with a flourish, and pour new glasses for us.

Whoa.

I'd heard about
[sabrage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champagne_%28beverage%29#Sabrage)
before, but I'd never had the chance to witness it in person. Evidently, it
started with Napoleon's cavalry in the 18th century. The night before they were
to fight, officers would serve champagne to their infantry in a French take on
the "last meal." Madame
[Clicquot](http://www.veuve-clicquot.com/) herself is rumored to have started
the tradition.

[<img src="/space/sabred_bottle_and_cork.jpg" style="float:left; margin-right: 10px" />
](http://www.flickr.com/photos/daniel_meredith/266709764/)

Whether or not that's true, it was a great show. Our server described the
science and technique behind it, showed us the seam in the glass, and
demonstrated proper technique - in a nutshell, slide, don't chop.

Still, when the sabre finally hit the bottle and the glass exploded, I was
blown away. He was quick, clean, and absolutely effortless. What's more, we
kept the cork, with the remnants of the glass neck still hugging it all the way
around. Very, very cool.

Thanks to [Dan](http://kodiak.brainymonkey.com/) for the inspiration, along
with the picture and
[original post](http://kodiak.brainymonkey.com/index.php/2006/10/10/multimedia-message-50/).