Sabering Champagne: get over it already

Hey Hoke, do have any material on port tongs.

I'm not Hoke, but I have played him on TV. My take is that port tongs are far more useful than sabering. For those who collect and age vintage Port, there may come a time when one wishes to remove a 60- (or 70-) year old cork from a crusty bottle of Port. Under such circumstances (as I understand it) any attempt to extract the cork by normal means will result in either a) the crumbling of the cork into the bottle and/or b) the disturbing of the sediment. Port tongs finesse both problems (if one can accommodate both concepts of Port tongs and finesse simultaneously).

Mark "I am Hoke" Lipton

I am Hoke, and I never got past basic Chemistry, so I'll never be confused with Mark Lipton.

Sam, I know relatively little about port tongs, except that I owned a pair for a while, and another friend owned a pair as well. Friend and I, one cold winter night suited for old port, stoked up the fireplace to a considerable roar, created some lovely banked embers, and put his port tongs in the fireplace.

We first tried the port tongs on some younger bottles, to discover that port tongs are not easy to use and one must practice before tackling the old bottles lest you screw it up. (I think that's called the scientific method.) Because we screwed said younger bottle---then progressively screwed up several empty bottles trying to get the technique right.

Finally, we did develop some slight proficiency. And once developed, that proficiency was never used again.

Seriously, it was fun to do, and if one had a good supply of very old portos, it might conceivably come in handy. The tricky part is getting the tongs heated to a high enough point, applying them quickly, leaving them in place long enough to create the fracture zone where desired, and then 'chinking off' the top delicately. I'd practice first.

Question for Mark "I am not Hoke" Lipton: Chemistry Man, we discovered that newer bottles were very much more difficult to tong and break off cleanly than some older bottles we worked on. Would that possibly be because newer glass/bottles are stronger and more resistant to fracturing, even when heat is applied?

Question for Mark "I am not Hoke" Lipton: Chemistry Man, we discovered that newer bottles were very much more difficult to tong and break off cleanly than some older bottles we worked on. Would that possibly be because newer glass/bottles are stronger and more resistant to fracturing, even when heat is applied?

Glass is tricky stuff, Hoke, as it refers more to a state of matter than any particular composition, which means that there's glass and then there's glass! Glass also changes with age, such as older glass windows will be thicker on bottom than on top because it flows, albeit slowly. I'd not be at all surprised if older glass leaches some of the ions that help stabilize the amorphous structure. So, short answer is yes, the older glass could easily be more brittle. Of course, just as easily it could not be too.

Cheers!
Mark

[James Roscoe]

Can we all agree that we are going to continue to sabre champagne, not because the act itself is anything special, but that we just like pissing off Hoke? Quite frankly it's a win, win there as far as I am concerned. I feel like Charlie Sheen!

I do agree with Hoke that sabreing Champagne is one of those "because I can" sort of acts. I've done it for yucks a few times, but my usual way of opening the bottle is removing the cork with great care and the tiniest of "pops".

Port tongs are a different matter. The technique actually does serve a real purpose. The corks in old vintage Port bottles tend to go crumbly, and a screwpull just drills a hole in the middle of the cork. The alternative is the ah-so opener, but every time I try to use one I just end up pushing the cork in the bottle. Port tongs do the trick for me.

-Paul W.

Port tongs is indeed a very useful tool when opening old bottles of vintage port. Preferably one should use tongs that one has made oneself. Here's a description of making mine: http://www.wineloverspage.com/port/tongs.phtml.
Furthermore, I have to admit that I do like sabering champagne bottles a lot and yes, I have made my own saber in the smithy too... I intended to post the story about making it too, but never got to writing it. Maybe one day.

Cheers,
Anders

Anders, you get a by on sabres and port tongs. Anyone willing to smithy his own implements is qualified to do whatever he wants with them.

Hoke, in spite of your rant in the first post, I must admit that you seem to be a quite generous nature.
/A