Sabrage

A Fancy-Schmancy New Year’s Eve Word

Here's an excellent, modestly obscure word upon which to place a small wager at a New Year's Eve party. You bet the cultural know-it-all of the party that there is one word associated with New Year's Eve toasting that he/she cannot define.

Sabrage is using a saber to slice the top off a bottle of champagne, in French “sabrer la bouteille.”

Is this a gesture new to the realms of wacko celebratory excess? No. French cavalry officers began the custom more than 200 years ago, to add panache and verve to the banquet after the victory.

Properly executed, sabrage produces a clean cut of the glass neck of the champagne bottle and a modest pop. Bubbly spew from the beheaded bottle is minimal, according to the two Hussars I interviewed in a darkened banquet hall. The bottle of champers must be perfectly chilled and the saber razor-sharp.

Recently a Canadian chef and restauranteur described a wedding where the newly married couple were met on the church steps by 10 men in uniform who performed deft sabrage upon 20 bottles of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin.

Full instructions for this glassy guillotining may be found at http://www.champagneclub.org

Champagne and wine maven Peter May writes, “A more dramatic method is ‘sabrage,’ invented by impatient cavalry officers who used their sabres to slice open bottles. In fact a table knife will do; remove the cage and metal foil. Find the seam along the neck, and holding the bottle with one hand at a slight upward angle slide the knife smoothly up the seam. As it strikes the rim the bottle top enclosing the cork will fly off.” 

A sword with a curved blade, sabre, is a Hungarian word. It began slashing and swashing as the Magyar word száblya, was borrowed into Polish as szabla, then into German as Sabel (1428 C.E), Säbel, and Schabel, into French as sabre (1598 C.E.) and finally into English.

Sabrage

A Fancy-Schmancy New Year’s Eve Word

Here's an excellent, modestly obscure word upon which to place a small wager at a New Year's Eve party. You bet the cultural know-it-all of the party that there is one word associated with New Year's Eve toasting that he/she cannot define.

Sabrage is using a saber to slice the top off a bottle of champagne, in French “sabrer la bouteille.”

Is this a gesture new to the realms of wacko celebratory excess? No. French cavalry officers began the custom more than 200 years ago, to add panache and verve to the banquet after the victory.

Properly executed, sabrage produces a clean cut of the glass neck of the champagne bottle and a modest pop. Bubbly spew from the beheaded bottle is minimal, according to the two Hussars I interviewed in a darkened banquet hall. The bottle of champers must be perfectly chilled and the saber razor-sharp.

Recently a Canadian chef and restauranteur described a wedding where the newly married couple were met on the church steps by 10 men in uniform who performed deft sabrage upon 20 bottles of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin.

Full instructions for this glassy guillotining may be found at http://www.champagneclub.org

Champagne and wine maven Peter May writes, “A more dramatic method is ‘sabrage,’ invented by impatient cavalry officers who used their sabres to slice open bottles. In fact a table knife will do; remove the cage and metal foil. Find the seam along the neck, and holding the bottle with one hand at a slight upward angle slide the knife smoothly up the seam. As it strikes the rim the bottle top enclosing the cork will fly off.” 

A sword with a curved blade, sabre is ultimately a Hungarian word. It began slashing and swashing as the Magyar word száblya, was borrowed into Polish as szabla, then into German as Sabel (1428 C.E), Säbel, and Schabel, and then into French as sabre (1598 C.E.) and finally into English.

                                       © 2012 William Gordon Casselman

Any comments, additional word lore or book orders?