Mad Champagne saberer Matt Stache mixes booze, blades, and rock and roll in his semi-irregular YouTube channel where he asks that all-important question: “Will it saber?”
In other words, will the chosen object open a bottle of Champagne without blowing it up or decapitating anyone. Stache isn’t just asking a hypothetical question. He’s a man of action.
Over the past year Stache, frontman for the band The JackKnife Barbers, has uploaded videos of himself opening Champagne bottles with the following implements: a Bowie knife, the foot of a Martini glass, an actual saber, a cavalry bayonet (standard issue), a six-foot garden scythe, and a brake rotor from a 2002 Mazda, among other extremely assorted items. His collection of sabrage implements is reminiscent of a junk yard in Valhalla.
“I’ve always been a bit histrionic,” he says, “So documenting it on video was really the next logical step.”
It would certainly make an unforgettable New Year’s Eve if you could manage any of his tricks, although I wouldn’t recommend this one for your living room.
“My favorite weapon to use was the “big f-ing sword” in episode 8, Stache said in an online chat “It was borrowed from a friend who said ‘There’s no way you’re going to get this on the first try.’ I did get it on the first try. Although…I’ve really lost track of all the things I’ve used. Champagne tends to make one’s recollection a little fuzzy. I really do like using the foot of a wine glass though. That would have to be my favorite as far as flashiness.”
This isn’t Stache’s fulltime gig. He’s a Floridian with a day job and a very interesting hobby.
“My employment isn’t booze-related, but it does make me want to drink,” he said. The sabrage hobby runs him about $100 a month, domestic bubbles being quite acceptable for practice, although he warns others that “One major domestic brand that advertises heavily around New Years (start’s with K and ends with “orbel”) tends to experience violent catastrophic bottle failure about 3 out of 4 times.”
“Prosecco bottles tend to have a narrower neck and make a really satisfying POP (then again, so do bottles of Coors).”
Stache is clearly no booze snob.
But he is ambitious. This year he intends to go after the world record for sabrage.
“The previous two records were 23 and 27 bottles sabered in a minute respectively. Zane Lamprey broke the record during the most recent Super Bowl half-time at 31 bottles a minute. There appears to be a gentleman’s rule of breaking only 4 additional bottles a minute. I’m a gentleman, but I think I can crack open four full cases (48) in a minute. Half of the trouble is acquiring 4 cases on my budget. the other half is drinking them.”
That is what you call a first-world problem.
