A champagne bottle can teach you more about cybersecurity than you’d expect. We start with sabrage, the old French tradition of opening champagne with a saber, and we get hands-on with the real mechanics: finding the bottle seam, aiming at the pressure-focused weak spot under the lip, and using a controlled slide instead of raw strength. When it works, it’s clean, safe, and oddly satisfying. When it doesn’t, it’s a fast lesson in why technique beats confidence.
From there, we turn the physics into a security mindset. Attackers rarely “cut through the whole bottle” they hunt for the one weak point that breaks everything open. We talk about what that means for cybersecurity leadership, preparedness, and incident response: practice before you’re under pressure, keep your defenses sharp on campaign, and avoid the expensive pattern of procrastinating until an incident forces a rushed buying spree. Readiness is a balance, not a single obsession.
Then we nerd out on the blades themselves, from a Napoleonic-era hanger built for this kind of work to a Scottish basket-hilted broadsword and a stunning 1600s katana. We get into why European swords often chase flexibility while Japanese blades lean on differential hardening for a harder edge, plus the cultural story behind foreign steel and expressive fittings. We wrap by cutting fruit and confronting the final lesson: hesitation changes outcomes, so train your form until decisive action feels normal.
If you enjoyed the mix of history, hands-on technique, and practical cybersecurity takeaways, subscribe, share this with a friend who’d try sabrage, and leave a review with your favorite “weak spot” lesson from the conversation.
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Part 1: https://youtu.be/RFdbo8fjbLM
Part 2: https://youtu.be/lkK58zRdbdQ
Here's the transcript of this whole episode:
00:00:05:20 - 00:00:30:10
Unknown
So what are we doing here? Yeah, we're doing a little bit of sabotage. So sabotage is the opening of a champagne bottle using using a saber. And it's. It's an old French tradition. It actually started in the Napoleonic era. Supposedly, the Napoleonic soldiers would ride through the champagne part of France on their way to Waterloo. And they would.
00:00:30:11 - 00:00:54:08
Unknown
There was a beautiful young woman who was one of the vineyard daughters. Yeah, maidens. And they would all try to impress her. And so one guy, she handed him a cold bottle of champagne, and they would all drink the champagne on their horses as they rode. But one guy decided to pull out his saber and cut the top of the bottle off to impress her.
00:00:54:08 - 00:01:21:02
Unknown
And that's how sabotage was supposedly. Was his Sobhraj or no, no, no, it's because saber was saber. Saber? Oh, I don't know. French. French for saber shit. Yeah. So what you do is you prepare the bottle and then I'm going to move over here. That's a good idea. It's a good idea. It will go a little ways and then you're actually looking for this is your this is your tie in right here.
00:01:21:02 - 00:01:45:08
Unknown
You're looking for weak. The weak spot in the bottle. There's one place right here on the neck of the bottle, on a champagne bottle that above or below the goal is below the lip, and it focuses all of the energy of the bubbles of the champagne into that one spot. So just a light tap will cause it to, to, to.
00:01:45:09 - 00:02:10:13
Unknown
So is this kind of like, you know, with cyber criminals, they're finding the one or thousand spots and that's their way in. Exactly. I can't I couldn't cut through this bottle. But, Cody, you could try. You could try. Next, one small tap to the right spot. Wow. And the bottle opener. And nothing went anywhere. Nothing anywhere. That's because you properly chilled it.
00:02:10:15 - 00:02:27:02
Unknown
Most importantly, I actually have done it professionally. I did it at weddings in college. Love it so much more. Okay. What am I doing here? So what you want to do is you want to look for the seam on the bottle. If you look, you'll see where the two pieces of the bottle come together. Oh, it's right here.
00:02:27:04 - 00:02:49:18
Unknown
So turn it a little bit more. See that seem where the two lights. Not great, is it? Oh. Is it? Yeah. Do you see? It runs all the way down the bottle. Got it. Got it. And so what you do is you hold it in that hand, you take this hand and you can see where I've got some kind of indents from where I've done it a lot.
00:02:49:18 - 00:03:08:14
Unknown
You just set the saver along the side of the bottle and slide it down. You want to give a little bit of pressure so that you pop it right there. How much force do I need? Not like a ton. But you do want follow through. You want to? Yeah, yeah, a little bit faster. More. Yeah. There you go.
00:03:08:19 - 00:03:20:11
Unknown
That'll do it. Pickleball, man I think like a little punch. Don't don't don't do it. More force. Press down more. Okay. Here we go.
00:03:20:13 - 00:03:33:11
Unknown
Got it. Oh, there it is. A little bit more bubbly. Glad we had that tarp. See you. That's. And yours broke. Better to go.
00:03:33:13 - 00:03:52:21
Unknown
So two scenes. Is there a just either. Same here. I got to see my here. It's. You mean you see it on both sides? Is it a seam or a some Cody. Well, this is a seam also like CSO, but if it was a seesaw and a sim, this podcast is over. Okay, set it right on the scene.
00:03:52:22 - 00:04:10:00
Unknown
Okay. And you actually want to hold it a little bit more like that. There you go. It's a little bit of an angle. So you're going to be hitting it right there. Okay. And it's just you know you got to give it a little bit of force. But is there is there any like good like saying you hear, you know, as you push it off, any good luck or good?
00:04:10:02 - 00:04:28:06
Unknown
I for some reason people always say Opa which is not, not that's Greek. So I don't know what French. What do they say in French? I'm going to ask a for like cheers. Say. Which means good luck.
00:04:28:07 - 00:04:51:14
Unknown
To your health is. Cheers. Okay. Santé. Here we go. Santé. Hey, there it is. Look at that. That is pretty well done. Well done. Beautiful. Well done. Yeah, you can break that out. Thank you sir. Well, I if you guys want to know the secret, you can do it with the back of a kitchen knife. Really? Yeah. You can do it with anything.
00:04:51:15 - 00:05:11:10
Unknown
Not as fun. Yeah. Yeah. You just need something with a little white. Doing that on vacation next year. I am. Look at that. Now, if you've seen a lot of you've seen a lot of bottles being broken. What are your thoughts here? Just quick, quick, unbiased opinion to myself and Aaron who aren't competitive at all. What do you think as far as this, this clean one versus his last couple of tries he had?
00:05:11:12 - 00:05:29:04
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. Unbiased I mean clearly you did it on the first try. And that's a very clean break. So. Gotcha okay. So while Aaron's the one who invited me I'm going to have to I'm going to have to go with Cody. Don't want the I don't want the results to be rigged. To be fair, though. You both beat me.
00:05:29:05 - 00:05:53:05
Unknown
Mine's. Mine's a little jagged, but I like that. That is clean. Isn't that cool? Yeah. So this is called a Brigette Saber. It's a it's a small infantry hanger. A hanger means the sword that they would hang from their belt. So it would have been around the Napoleonic era, so early 1800s. And it's just a general issue. Sword, brass hilt.
00:05:53:07 - 00:06:12:00
Unknown
But I really like it. It's got a nice size and weight for this, for this, for this particular. And then you would, this would be sheathed or it would, it would normally end. In fact I have a leather sheath at home for it. But it's very old and leather gets very brittle and, and when it gets old. So I don't usually bring it around.
00:06:12:01 - 00:06:37:00
Unknown
I mean, people are using it to fight. Oh, yeah. It's not as much as you think. This is actually a pretty heavy one. I have. I have about two dozen hangers. I like them, they're fun little swords. This one's fairly heavy, but it's still probably I'm going to say 1.2 pounds. Maybe Pirates liked them. They also pirate ones tended or naval ones, not just pirates.
00:06:37:01 - 00:07:16:17
Unknown
All navies liked them to be just a little bit heftier so that they could cut ropes and things with them too. They didn't have to. They could use it as a tool as well as a Jack Sparrow would have had something like this. Exactly. All right. So because you guys kind of gravitated that way, and I do too, I brought a nice Scottish sword from the middle of the 1700s, which is right when if you watch the movie Rob Roy when Rob Roy was, was at and this is I really like these basket broadsword sometimes called claymores.
00:07:16:17 - 00:07:34:15
Unknown
And this one has a really wide thick blade. They used to supposedly the English said that a Scotsman could cut somebody in half from shoulder to hip with their broadsword. Yeah, okay.
00:07:34:16 - 00:07:58:18
Unknown
But here you can hold this as well. It's again, it's probably going to be lighter than you think and a little bit more. It's also sharp. So okay. Is this sharpened to fighting value or would you. That's about where it would probably be. Usually these wouldn't be razor sharp. And we can talk about that with with Japanese swords which I brought to Japanese swords tended to be sharper.
00:07:58:18 - 00:08:25:19
Unknown
But that's because they differentially hardened so that the edge is much, much harder than the back. The Europeans tried to get the same hardness all the way through the steel, which makes it very flexible, but it won't hold an edge as well. So it would be sharpened. You know, we have lots of examples of the British Army, amongst others, issuing orders to sharpen sabers.
00:08:25:20 - 00:08:44:05
Unknown
Like, like we're going to go into battle, sharpen them, get them ready. When you have fired these swords, they've obviously been used before. So there's chances that these swords have got some numbers on them. Oh, yes. So so sharpening sharpening the sword like connection back to cyber. There are a lot of teams that are kind of just complacent.
00:08:44:05 - 00:09:10:21
Unknown
And the way they've always done it, they're not practicing for battle, they're not sharpening. They're absolutely like, what does that take? Is it leadership? You mentioned command. We command you to sharpen your sword in the back. Yes. How do cyber leaders like you know what's the connection there? Well, and I think I think leadership and preparation. Right. Because you're seeing the commanders say, okay, sharpen your swords.
00:09:10:21 - 00:09:40:16
Unknown
Let's let's get ready for the battle that's going to come. But also, a good soldier should have had their sword sharpened while on campaign all the time, because you don't know when you're going to be attacked, right? You don't know when. Yeah. If you wait until the battle, then it may be too late. So I think that that's a good allegory for, you know, leadership in cybersecurity, because you've got to be prepared at all times.
00:09:40:16 - 00:10:03:18
Unknown
You need to be ready for for the attack to come. But if you spend all your time sharpening your saber, which sounds really euphemistic, if you spend all your time sharpening your saber at the at the camp, you're not going to have your artillery ready your, your, your other things ready to. So it's a balancing act. Yeah. Yeah for sure.
00:10:03:21 - 00:10:30:10
Unknown
Yeah. I've been collecting since high school and I've got I think I'm sitting right now at about 120, 120. Yeah. It depends. What is it in dull hairs. Doesn't want to know my wife. I will not say that on camera. Good point to point. No. I mean, you know, it's one of those things where I've been doing it for like 25 years now.
00:10:30:10 - 00:10:53:22
Unknown
So you things. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's. And of course you bought a, you bought load. They've invested. It's now they're worth now. Well and I also buy and sell right. So I don't know what our cybersecurity analogy there is but I do buy I think it's cyber programs tend to procrastinate until they have an incident. And then they try to do everything really fast.
00:10:53:23 - 00:11:10:18
Unknown
And that's more expensive swords. It's going to be more expensive. You're probably not going to use them all. You're not going to even understand them all. Yeah, yeah. If right now the collection is probably sitting at 60 70,000. But that's not what I paid for it because I bought them over time. And also I'd trade one to get another one.
00:11:10:23 - 00:11:44:07
Unknown
Now we're talking. So this is what I waited for. So obviously the infamous katana. Right. Japanese. And this one in particular is one of my favorites. It is a it's from the middle 1600s made by a maker named Nobu. One of my favorite things about it is that it is made with what they call Nanban Tetsu, which is foreign or barbarian steel.
00:11:44:08 - 00:12:09:10
Unknown
So if. Have you guys watched Shogun? Yes. Yeah. So when the. When the black Ships came in. When the when the traders started arriving. The Dutch, they brought steel with them. They brought iron with them. That was in some ways superior to the Japanese iron. It was more pure. But but it didn't fit well in the way that the Japanese were used to working their iron.
00:12:09:10 - 00:12:36:11
Unknown
But it became very fashionable in the early and mid 1800s to have a sword that used this steel from, from the, from the barbarians that came to trade. And the barbarians were the Europeans or the Mongolians? No, no, the Europeans. Europeans are considered barbarians, which is great for me. And so they would they liked, they they liked to put the steel in.
00:12:36:11 - 00:13:00:23
Unknown
It would usually just be mixed with the Japanese steel. And honestly, it provides absolutely no value or change. It's just a part of the artistry of what happened. Right? So when you draw a Japanese sword, you're going to it's it's got a collar that fits perfectly to the scabbard. So you pop it out with your thumb and that'll allow the sword to start to come out.
00:13:01:00 - 00:13:19:11
Unknown
You keep the back along the back of the scabbard, because you don't want to rub the edge against the the scabbard. That'll doll it. Let's hop in the bottom well along the bottom. So I'm holding it along the bottom. And then when you pull it out, what you're looking at with a Japanese sword I talked about the differential hardening.
00:13:19:11 - 00:13:42:02
Unknown
So that's the wavy line that you can kind of see go down the sword. And we can get some better in. What is it for a time. Is this the one that we will we will not be cutting fruit with this. I brought a I brought a replica for us to cut fruit with. Because. Because this one is, is my favorite and so.
00:13:42:04 - 00:13:50:16
Unknown
Yeah. So here, please feel free to hold it.
00:13:50:18 - 00:14:04:12
Unknown
Is this what is this here. So these are called monarchy. And they are they're decorative. So much like what. Oh yeah. This is very sharp.
00:14:04:14 - 00:14:38:16
Unknown
The shave your beard. It will catch up. The samurai would they were not supposed to be ostentatious. That was not a especially in the 1600s during that particular period. And so their fittings on their swords were something that they were allowed to express themselves with. And so that was really the jewelry of the time. So these are made of which is a mix of copper and gold.
00:14:38:19 - 00:15:02:21
Unknown
And then they have gold inlay. It's like the things our kids put on their crocks. Exactly, exactly, exactly. Only like, you know, thousands of dollars instead of. Yes, yes. All right. So, so yeah. So there's your there's your true antique. This is an actual samurai sword would have been carried by a samurai. We know that because it's too long to have been carried legally by anybody else.
00:15:02:21 - 00:15:09:12
Unknown
So. So there you go. You.
00:15:09:14 - 00:15:23:00
Unknown
Sure I'm not going to hit me? Okay.
00:15:23:02 - 00:15:32:16
Unknown
Wow. Nope.
00:15:32:18 - 00:15:39:22
Unknown
Nice work. Nice work. Well done. Paper towels.
00:15:40:00 - 00:15:44:17
Unknown
Oh, there we go. Here we go.
00:15:44:19 - 00:15:59:09
Unknown
Bam! There you go. Good form. Form is good to. Thank you. So. Yeah. There you go. Apples, oranges. We're going to put orange on Aron's head and you go.
00:15:59:11 - 00:16:09:10
Unknown
Oh, there it is, big dog. That's going to be awesome. Slow mo. Yeah. There you go.
00:16:09:12 - 00:16:39:16
Unknown
You can play with that one if you want. That's more of a knight sword. It's like Braveheart. All right. You guys have insurance, right? So. So who who wants to cut first? You go first. Okay. So, Aaron, when you do this, I would use one hand and I would aim right here on the watermelon. Okay. And what you actually want to do is make sure that you pull back and step through when you cut.
00:16:39:22 - 00:16:49:11
Unknown
Because I don't want because that's kind of where the power comes from. But you don't need as much power as you think. It's not about power.
00:16:49:13 - 00:17:01:08
Unknown
There it is. All right. Give it a swing. All right, all right. So I'm just going to come through here.
00:17:01:10 - 00:17:10:20
Unknown
Nice. Clean cut. Yeah, yeah. Oh.
00:17:10:22 - 00:17:32:18
Unknown
Now I'm afraid. Yeah. Now you've gotten all hesitant. Yeah. Yeah. Which I'm sure there's a lesson in there too about getting hesitant. Is that like, so, like gun shy. Like I took a swing. It didn't work. So I didn't use my full potential. Yeah, yeah yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, if you it has to be a sharp, decisive action.
00:17:32:18 - 00:18:03:21
Unknown
But sometimes sharp, decisive actions do result in, in cuts to the cuts to the wood instead of, if you can get that bad boy, let me see the katana. And it's even a little lighter. Little lighter, really. I just hadn't cut with this one than I wanted to. Let's see. Yeah, paper towel would be great.
00:18:03:23 - 00:18:09:06
Unknown
Nice. Very nice.
00:18:09:08 - 00:18:12:03
Unknown
Little, little zest. Just just needed some.