Sabrage Goes Mobile With This Champagne Butler Service

The finest special occasions are marked by Champagne. Be it popping a bottle for your birthday, celebrating a sporting victory, a wedding or perhaps a big purchase, there is usually a bottle or two of champagne hanging around. How you decide to open said bottle, all depends on how fancy you’re feeling. You could choose the sedate approach, using a towel with minimal sound from the cork. Or, take a more extroverted angle, launching the cork from the bottle (better to be outside and not pointed at anyone). For maximum style points, why not pull out the trusty saber and decapitate the bottle with great pomp and circumstance? Of course, not everyone has a saber lying around, which is exactly where The St. Regis Mobile Champagne Butler Service comes in.

This year, in celebration of the iconic New York haunt’s 120^th anniversary, The St. Regis New York is launching its Mobile Champagne Butler Service, which is set to bring the hotel's traditional sabrage anywhere in the city.

Ideal for adding the final touch to any celebration, an expertly trained St. Regis Butler will arrive via a branded Vespa that’s fitted with a Champagne-laden wicker basket. The butler will give a brief history of the storied ritual, before ceremonially lopping off the top of the bottle with what is essentially a Napoleonic weapon of war.

Customers can also learn the skill themselves with a sabering lesson / ©St. Regis

If customers are inclined, the Champagne Butler Service can also deliver sabering lessons, allowing them to get to grips with 19th-century bottle etiquette.

“As we celebrate our 120th anniversary at Manhattan’s best address, we are thrilled to offer our sabrage ritual as a mobile experience for the first time in the hotel’s history,” said Octavia Marginean-Tahiroglu, general manager of The St. Regis New York.

“As we toast our own milestone, we also want to toast the milestones, parties and occasions happening across the city with this special champagne service.”

Puffed potato and caviar with citrus dust / ©Yann Nury NYC

Not wanting New York City to keep all the fun, exclusively for the summer season, The St. Regis Champagne Butler Service will also be heading east with a special Hamptons package. Here, customers can select their preferred champagne, so the service will be priced on request. In addition to the bubbles, a selection of food pairings will be provided by Yann Nury NYC, one of the most highly regarded culinary agencies in the Hamptons.

Sabering and St. Regis go hand in hand. The tradition started in 1904 when John Jacob Astor IV celebrated the opening of the iconic NYC hotel by sabering a bottle, it's still how new St. Regis hotels are christened to this day.

Available for occasions throughout New York City, the St. Regis Mobile Champagne service can be booked by the Mobile Champagne Butler hotline.

marriott.com