On Christmas morning, right after the 8 a.m. gift exchange and ceremonial yawn, the first thing my mom does before putting the turkey in the oven is flip over a carton of ice cream into a punch bowl. A whole carton, half vanilla, half chocolate. There the ice cream sits all afternoon, melting in the punch bowl as my family races to get the house ready for company.
By 2:30 or so, the ice cream is fully melted. That’s when she pours a quart of Wawa eggnog into the mix (we always go with Wawa because we’re a South Jersey family and there’s one a few blocks away) and gives the whole thing a nice long stir. A bottle of brandy and a bottle of whiskey go on the side with some fresh grated nutmeg. And there you have it. Eggnog. By the time the cousins arrive, we’re all a few glasses in.
I know, the trough of lukewarm dairy doesn’t exactly sound delectable. But it’s become our holiday tradition. The recipe—if you can even call it that—comes from my grandpop on my mom’s side. Last year, I got curious about the history of eggnog, the age-old curdled milk cocktail, and decided to make the drink from scratch to see how it would compare to my grandpop’s bootleg recipe. I did the egg whites, with the cream and milk and everything, spending the time to chill the mixture, separate the yolks, and whisk it all together. It was a huge pain, but the result was kind of amazing. After drinking both, I realized that not only was grandpop’s eggnog just as good, but that his bizarre concoction somehow captured the essence of the real thing. It tasted the same. And you never even have to crack an egg!
Real-deal eggnog actually dates back to around the 1400s. The old-school recipe involved letting the raw eggs sit in the liquor for a while—in George Washington’s recipe, a period of “several days”—and not necessarily in a fridge. It’s a process that I’m sure a lot of drinkers today would find unappetizing, but apparently the alcohol somehow sterilizes the bacteria, including salmonella. Sketchy as it may sound, PBS.com says that eggnog actually bares a resemblance to another dairy product that’s more commonly consumed today. Its “History of Eggnog” reads, “The combination of raw eggs, milk and sugar might seem strange, until one realizes that unfrozen ice cream has the same basic components.” Ice cream! Maybe my grandpop was onto something after all.
Little is known about the origins of my grandpop’s holiday nog. Apparently the guy had a thing for ice cream and was known to sneak a few scoops while my grandmom wasn’t watching. She’d catch him by the sound of a clinking spoon against a bowl. He was also known to drink Canadian Club whiskey. I suppose he became inspired one Christmas morning to combine his two loves.
I’ve always had the ice cream nog with Christian Brothers VS brandy. I find that the sweetness of the brandy cuts right through the fuzziness of the milkshake better than any liquor. I go heavy on the fresh-grated nutmeg, too. Brandy’s an okay mixer, but according to my mom, "You can put whatever you want in there.” She says grandpop used to use the holiday punch bowl as an opportunity to “clean out the whole liquor cabinet.” Her father was a shoemaker, World War II vet, and son of working-class Southern Italian immigrants in Philadelphia. If only he could see his recipe now, published here on Esquire.
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December 24, 2019 at 07:00PM
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Easy Ice Cream Eggnog Recipe - How to Improve Store Bought Eggnog - Esquire.com
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