Frazz by Jef Mallett for December 21, 2019

Around here, we talk about high octane or low octane egg nog. My personal preference is to go straight to the octane part and skip both the nog and the egg.

It sure does!

Heavy cream, whole milk, eggs, sugar. Bourbon or Rum or Brandy if you are of age otherwise flavoring without the alcohol.

I’ll drink what my cousin started drinking this past July…TruMoo®. It’s safer.

Skimmed or no added sugar is where I draw the line. Everything else tastes like water.

There may be as many ways to make eggnog as there are to make bread. It reduces to a matter of taste and memory. As in all cases, family recipes may seem to fail for the simple reason that ingredients are no longer available.

Keep in mind that all ingredients are once-living organic stuff. Modern agriculture and the food industry have produced an assortment of homogenized products that are not the same as a century ago. Bud Light, Coke, and TruMoo are standardized for consistency but never have the individual quality of a home brew or fresh milk. My great-grandmother had two cows and could taste the difference in their milk. She used one for cooking and the other for the table. Actually you could see the difference.

Now I’m jonesing for a cup of eggnog…

Egg nog is like a drinkable french vanilla ice-cream. Add a little booze to it and it is lovely in the evening for dessert.

Chicken milk! At least, that’s what it says on the French side of the carton. “Lait de poule” – milk of chickens.

Never liked it as a kid, boy was I stupid.

I make mine without liquor. I’ve got nothing against a nice rum or scotch, but I just prefer them separate.

In all situations where eggnog would be considered appropriate, I prefer mulled wine.

But don’t make the mistake of thinking “it’s just for mulled wine; I’ll get this cheap plonk.” Bad wine cannot help but make bad mulled wine. I mean, you don’t need to use your 100-point, famous-vintage stuff, but if it’s crap to start, adding spices just makes it mulled crap.

Love the stuff, but can only the Lactaid variety; all the others make my guts very unhappy all night.

Eggnog: for when being stuffed with food just isn’t enough.

My sister raises chickens, turkeys and ducks. I wonder what eggnog would take like made with a fresh turkey or duck egg? It would DEFINETLY be different. We also avoid ultra pastured heavy whipping cream, if we can. I wished we lived closer to the country so we could get REAL cream. Sigh. We don’t use alcohol (sort of), but high quality flavorings (which do contain a bit of alcohol, if made right).

I’m not sure I’ve ever tried eggnog. The egg part scares me away. I’m not allergic; I just hate whenever I can taste or smell the stuff.

Years ago (can’t remember when) I ran across a parody of one of those “young man on a life journey” stories that started out in the village of Nog on Egg.

I really like eggnog, but boy am I glad they invented brandy and Kahlua to cut it!

Blog PostsFrazz17 hrs ·

Years ago, we lived across the street from a family who, had they not moved away first, I might still live in Lansing just to be across the street from them. They were wonderful for a number of reasons, but one in particular for today’s theme:

One of them was originally from Puerto Rico, and so was her eggnog recipe. It was not the kind of eggnog you buy in the grocery store, and it was definitely not the kind of egg not you buy without at least two forms of ID being thoroughly checked. And it is wholly responsible for my theory of why people put rum or other liquor in the stuff: It’s actually healthier that way. But for the rum’s effects, I might actually be able to drink enough of the other ingredients to do my cardiovascular system some serious damage. Not so easy to do from under the table.

I prefer just a little eggnog and definitely without alcohol which has no known benefits. Small amounts of different flavors. A little sip here an there I can have.

My family’s eggnog: eggs, vanilla, milk, sugar, vanilla ice cream, and nutmeg.