This blog's title.

Several people (i.e., both my readers) have asked me about the title for this blog. It comes from a story told by Professor George Saintsbury. He was a prominent literary scholar in Victorian times. His "Notes on a Cellar Book," from the beginning of the last century, was the first example of a drinker writing expansively about his tipple. I see him as the first wine-blogger. In general, as befits a Victorian professor of literature in Scotland, he was a rather formal sort of fellow, sometimes close to pompous and often pedantic. Like many of his readers, therefore, I especially enjoy this bit he tells:
"So, though I could not even then drink quite as much beer as I could thirty years earlier a little higher up the Thames, it became necessary to procure a cask. It came—one of Bass’s minor mildnesses—affectionately labeled “Mr. George Saintsbury. Full to the bung.” I detached the card, and I believe I have it to this day as my choicest (because quite unsolicited) testimonial. "