This article has been updated with Herman’s thoughts after letting the eggnog age for 3 weeks. See the additional notes at the end.
Hello, Snobs. Herman here. With Thanksgiving wrapping up I thought it would be a good time to start thinking about Christmas and the fewd and booze related to such. In fact, I have a perfect recipe for What Herman Made, and since it takes a couple weeks to sit, the first week or two of December is just right to make it. Aged Eggnog. Personally I had never heard of “aged” eggnog before and was definitely intrigued.
As a Fewd Snob, I am a big fan of traditional eggnog and have made it before. I am also just as content buying the stuff from the store that is already made and adding a couple snorts of booze. I mean, what’s not to like? Creamy, spicy, egg drink with a ton of booze. Sounds good to me!
One thing I have to mention before we get started though. Denny is noticeably absent on this one. Eggs plus dairy plus Denny do not mix. I’m pretty sure if he was even in the same room as this stuff, he would crap his pants. So Denny will not be joining us for this one. Oh wells! More booze for Herman! HO HO!!
So where to start. First off, I have to give credit where credit is due. This recipe is actually from Alton Brown’s website. You know, the weird food science guy from Food Network. I actually have to admit I am a fan of most of his stuff and this just sounded too good not to try.
Alton Brown gives a brief history of eggnog and how it was a traditional Old English drink. Nowadays it is usually associated with Christmas as the drink of choice. One of my favorite eggnog references, and Denny will agree with me, is the classic Clark Griswold going off the deep end in Christmas Vacation, then proceeding to have a few drinks of eggnog saying, “It’s good, it’s good.” Never gets old. Always makes me want eggnog. So lets get to it!
First we start with the ingredients, of which you can see in the picture above. One other thing to note, I got a little ambitious and decided to double the recipe. Cause what’s better than one batch of aged eggnog? TWO batches of aged eggnog! So here is the list of ingredients directly from the website:
Ingredients:
– 12 large eggs (pasteurized if you need peace of mind)
– 1 pound sugar
– 1 pint half-n-half
– 1 pint whole milk
– 1 pint heavy cream
– 1 cup Jamaican rum
– 1 cup cognac
– 1 cup bourbon
– 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (plus more for serving)
– 1/4 teaspon kosher salt
Again, I doubled this recipe (don’t drink and cook kids, HO HO). You will probably be fine with the standard batch. Your choice.
Now to the fun part. There is a certain way to combine everything, so I will go through it step by step. First we start by separating the eggs. In my case, ALL 24 of ’em!
As I’m sure you can see, I was missing one egg. So sue me. Close enough.
So check it out. I managed to only break one of the yolks. I know, I’m a bad ass. Hold your applause until the end of the performance please 🙂
The next step is to measure out your sugar. For mine, I needed two pounds.
Can I get a DIABETUS! HO HO!
Next the FRESHLY grated nutmeg. See my fancy grater?
Add both the sugar and nutmeg to your egg yolks and start mixing.
Looks pretty gross at first. It’s also quite the workout, especially if you double the recipe, LOL!
After you “beat the devil out of it,” as Bob Ross would say, you get something that looks like this. The mixture is quite a bit paler and thinner.
Set this mixture aside. Time to mix up your dairy with the nog!
For the dairy, we have equal parts heavy cream, half-n-half, and whole milk. Gotta love that milk fat!
And of course, our favorite part. You can’t have eggnog without the nog! In my case, we have Bulleit Bourbon, Hennessy Cognac, and one of my personal favorites, Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum. I know Alton says to use Jamaican rum. Well Sailor Jerry is Caribbean, so close enough. Also, since I decided to double the recipe on the fly, I only had a cup each of bourbon and cognac. So I decided to make up the rest with extra rum. I’m not complaining. The rum is my favorite part anyway. And it’s 92 proof to boot!
Also, as you can probably see, I had to sample a little of the rum before hand. You know, to make sure it was good…
So there it is. All the dairy and booze, plus a pinch of salt, mixed up. This was the point I really started to reconsider my choice in doubling the recipe. Oh well. Tis the season to be merry! What? Your name is Mary? No shit!
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. If you don’t know that reference, shame on you. Go watch Christmas Vacation already!
Back to it…
Combine the dairy/boozy goodness with your egg/sugar mixture (I had to get a bigger container to fit everything into). Mix thoroughly with your whisk. You want to make sure all the sugar is dissolved. And that’s pretty much it!
Now for the unconventional part. This is “Aged Eggnog” after all. Alton recommends letting this sit in the fridge for a minimum of two weeks. He claims that the booze will mellow out as it ages. This is probably a good thing cause I tried some of it fresh and I gotta say, this stuff could probably strip the paint off your walls. I’m pretty sure it was eating away at my whisk, HO HO!
In any case, it still tastes like eggnog. That’s all I care about. I even bought a fancy dispenser that I can keep in the fridge. I kind of like the idea of making it a few weeks in advance too. Cause then I have something to open on Christmas. Merry Christmas to me! And here’s to being drunk on Christmas! Now go make a gallon or two!
UPDATE from Herman (12/28/2015)
So I have sampled the eggnog at various points over the last three weeks. I have to say, Alton was right that it would mellow as it ages. When I tried it immediately after making it, the booze flavor was EXTREMELY potent. The next week, it was less boozy and more sweet. By the time Christmas rolled around, it had mellowed quite a bit. I would say the taste is very similar to Bailey’s at this point. In fact, I have been putting it in my coffee! HO HO! The other thing I will note is that I still have quite a bit of it left. I guess my Christmas guests aren’t as big a fans as I was. Oh well! More for me! And since it doesn’t go bad, it can stay in the fridge for a long time!
I know this post is a year old at this point, but this is one of many sites I landed on trying to decide if this eggnog recipe was worth the money put into it (around $55 in alcohol alone). When I tried it immediately after mixing it, I was very disappointed in the flavor because the alcohol was just way too strong to be enjoyable as eggnog. But, at this point, I’m 3 weeks in and it’s really starting to come together and taste really good. I expect it will be amazing by Christmas.
If you like eggnog already, this is definitely worth making it homemade. Much better than Evan Williams which is what us alcoholics normally drink around this time of year.
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