The «sabrage», or sabering, certainly a quite impressive way to open a champagne bottle with the help of a sabre, has its origin very likely in the time around Emperor Napoleon I. He loved the newly discovered champagne and is said to have decapitated champagne bottles with a sabre (French «sabre»), surrounded by his cavalry officers, after a victorious campaign against the Russian Tsarist Empire in 1812.
In France, the «Confrérie du Sabre d'Or» (Brotherhood of the Golden Sabre) - founded in 1986 in the Champagne region and today counting over 200,000 members - has made it its mission to maintain and pass on the tradition of the "sabrage".
Supposedly, it also works simply with a champagne glass, or a ballpoint pen, instead of a saber! Yes, the pen is mightier than...
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