Good Food
The Secret to Eggnog? Make it Now and Save it for Next Year
Put down the carton, real eggnog is made from scratch. For the best results, some say to age your eggnog for at least three weeks or up to a year before drinking.
By Gillian Ferguson • • 2 min readCourtesy of sheknows.com
Last week Evan educated me on aged eggnog. “It’s a thing,” she told me. “I did an interview about it years ago.”
I was skeptical. “Are you sure?” I asked.
Sure enough, it appears that the eggnog trend in 2008 involved making eggnog, putting it in the fridge for a year and then drinking it the following holiday season. I dug up the old interview with Lessley Anderson (who was then at Chow.com) and despite having six years of age on it, her story seems pretty contemporary. Just this week we interviewed Nick Balla and Cortney Burns of the au courant Bar Tartine about their new cookbook. They described several of their pantry items that take 6 months to a year to ferment, so why not eggnog?
Fortunately Lessley and her colleagues adapted the year-long process for the impatient drinker. Below is their adapted recipe that suggests aging the mixture of eggs, cream and booze for a mere 3 weeks. Intrepid drinkers and lovers of eggnog, I challenge you to make this recipe now and let us know how it turns out….next year.
By Jonathan Hunt of Chow.com
Total: 10 minutes, plus 3 weeks for aging
Makes: About 1 gallon
CHOW note: Unlike most eggnog recipes, this one calls for aging the eggnog for at least 3 weeks prior to consumption (or up to a year, says Hunt), to allows the flavors to meld. Chow aged the eggnog in the refrigerator in a clean 1-gallon jug, and it worked just fine.
For the eggnog:
12 large eggs
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1 qt (4 cups) whole milk
1 liter (about 4 cups) bourbon, such as Jim Beam
1/2 cup Myers’s dark rum
1/2 to 1 cup good Cognac or other brandy
Pinch kosher salt
1 whole nutmeg
To serve (optional):
10 egg whites
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
For the eggnog:
Separate egg yolks and whites. (Reserve egg whites for another use, such as egg-white frittata). Combine yolks and sugar in a large mixing bowl and whisk until well blended and creamy. Add cream, milk, bourbon, rum, Cognac (use the good stuff), and salt, then stir.
Bottle it right away and refrigerate it until it’s ready. (An old liquor bottle works great, as do 22-ounce bail-top bottles, available in brewing supply stores. Jonathan’s grandfather keeps the eggnog in the garage for 3 weeks, stirring occasionally, then bottles it. But aging in the garage is not recommended because the temperature can fluctuate.)
It’s traditional to wrap the bottle in aluminum foil, shiny side out, together with a fresh nut of nutmeg tucked into the foil for grating later. Keep refrigerated for at least 3 weeks, or up to a year if you can.
To serve (optional):
Jonathan serves aged eggnog on the rocks with some freshly grated nutmeg on top. If you want to serve the eggnog in the traditional way, pour it into a punch bowl. In separate bowls, whip 10 egg whites and 1 1/2 cups heavy cream to soft peaks and fold them into the eggnog. Serve in punch cups, garnished with freshly grated nutmeg.
Note: If you decide to bottle the eggnog, follow the step-by-step guide we created for our feature Make Your Own Soda Pop. Be sure, however, to refrigerate the bottles right away. Unlike the soda recipes, eggnog does not ferment (so there’s no danger of explosion); it just ages under refrigeration. The actual bottling process is the same, though.