This Is What I Drink : 23

Homemade Aged "Easter" Eggnog

Back on November 27th, 2009 my brother, mom, and I made some eggnog similar to this recipe. Naturally, we drank many bottles around the winter Holiday season, but we saved a few for later in the year as we heard that the eggnog gets better with aging. With just two bottles remaining, we decided that Easter was a great time to crack one of them open (the other is waiting until a full year after bottling date).

How does a mason jar of raw eggs, sugar, milk, and cream last 128 days without spoiling? The secret is plenty of booze. Many basic eggnog recipes will only stay fresh for a couple of weeks because of the modest booze infusion. This recipe calls for a couple of handles of cheap bourbon and a bottle each of cognac and rum. The end result puts this drink at about 20% alcohol. This amount will sterilize any of that bad stuff that may be lurking in the raw eggs or long overdue cream. The major benefit here is that the different ingredients get a long chance to meld together and gradually mellow out. If you mix in booze with store bought eggnog, it's extremely difficult to get it to blend together well without the alcohol rising to the top or tasting too strong. Given at least three weeks (and even better 4 months!), while you still smell the booze, it's much harder to taste it.

My bro and I both agreed that the "Easter addition" tasted the best yet. I can't wait to dip into the last bottle in about 7 more months. The review will certainly be here!