I posted a short guide to champagne-sabreing technique to MetaFilter. You just never know when a skill like that will come in handy.
Dan’s champagne-slicing quick reference
- Hold the bottle (in your non-dominant hand) pointing away from you and tilted upward about 30°.
- Hold the knife in your dominant hand, level with the horizon, blade away from you. Place the flat of the knife on the surface of the bottle (on or around the label).
- In one smooth, firm, confident motion (believe me, this helps), sweep the knife down the length of the bottle, maintaining bottle contact the entire way. Imagine that you will slice cleanly through the neck of the bottle, because this is what will (hopefully) occur.
The pressure of the champagne is focused on a weak point in the glass of the neck of the bottle, and it (the neck) will split along invisible lines of cleavage. You’ll be left with some champagne on the ground, the bottle neck somewhere across the room, and a bottle of champagne ending in an elliptical conic section, ready to be poured out to your admiring friends.
