Blind Muscat recently penned a review on Vinography of a new edition of the wine lover's classic, George Saintsbury's Notes on a Cellar-Book, reissued with extensive notes and annotations by the University of California Press. The book is a fine read, and perhaps a bit surprising, since only a small amount of it has to do with wine. Saintsbury drank everything he could get his lips around, at least once, often several times just to make sure he got it right: whisky, hard cider, beer of all sorts, raki, anything you could ferment or distill, and all with great gusto.
It occurred to me after the review was posted that the man was an omnibibe--a word that had never to my knowledge entered my mental space before that moment, but an obvious analog to omnivore, or the more recently fashionable locavore. Clearly, a job for Google, where I found an alleged 115 hits, really boiling down to more like 15, and most of them duplicates from a couple of usages. (Not to be confused with Omnivibe, which yields 7,130 or so hits, many having to do with an iPod sound docking system, and no doubt, some with intriguing devices for group erotic encounters. Didn't have time to follow all the links . . . )
In any case, web-loaded usage comes down to a couple of bloggers, to which I add myself. I can claim no originality, but perhaps here we have a case of multiple independent discovery, or enlightenment. Because this is a great term, a great concept, and deserves promotion--a cause to which I will now devote my life.
Let me hereby urge all of us who think and drink this way--trying with enthusiasm anything potentially potable with alcoholic content, just in case it's tasty, hoping to figure out its nature and infer workings and suitability in everyday life. To be clear here: drinking everything is not the same as drinking way too much; omnibibery is the relentless pursuit of endless variety, not a passport to delirium tremens. It is way better than confining oneself just to wine, or beer, or spirits, or whatever it is; it is a drinking mission, not a drinking habit.
And so on. Omnibibes need to make T-shirts; we need to hold conferences; all in good time.
To judge the efficacy of this campaign, Blind Muscat will report back in six months on the Google results of the same search. Which will at least tell me if anyone reads this blog.
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