"The Battle [and bottle] of Bataan"

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Mon Jan 14 17:03:20 UTC 2013


At 1/14/2013 06:49 AM, W Brewer wrote:
>WG:  <<<"the Battle of buh-TAHN">>
>WB:  Well, WG, when you hear about "the Bottle of Baton", we're all in
>trouble.

Fits well with our discussions of Spoonerisms and intoxication (see
"laeNgw at zh").  And perhaps said when after the Battle of Hastings one
has drunk too many bottles of Guiness.

But I must ask a serious question, which I may have asked here
previously.  Does W. Brewer know of something he might call a "bottle
of Baton"?  In a circa 1740 Boston newspaper there is an
advertisement by someone selling "a Parcel of choice Vidonia & Battan
Wines".  I've not been able to identify "battan wine", except
perchance as something produced in El Battan, an area in northern
Tunisia where the Spanish (whose Canary Islands produced vidonia)
traded.  But I have not found the place name actually attached to a wine name.

Joel

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