Exhibit #46: Seminar in Nogg

Baltimore Egg Nogg $6
It’s back! Martell VSOP cognac, Appleton 12yr rum, Madeira wine, eggs, milk, cream, sugar, nutmeg, aged for 4 months. Potent.

Like last year, I couldn’t help but individualize the batches a bit. One in particular turned out well and I’ll be pouring from that on Sundays. We’ll also hold a little back to serve at Easter time. The killer ingredient appears to have been a historic recreation of the Bual variety of Madeira; it mimics the style popular in Boston in the 18th and early 19th centuries, rendering a particularly smooth nogg. But if you’d like to have a round poured from the other batches, we have them available as well. They vary in terms of the rum used – one batch used a blend of Pusser’s and Appleton 12yr, and another has Smith & Cross, a particularly funky, navy strength, pot still rum, not unlike what was common way back when. These other batches all used a Verdelho Madeira for the wine.

Mr. Hunt’s Bourbon Nogg $6
Bourbon, eggs, sugar, milk, cream, nutmeg, and a little cognac and rum, aged for 4 months. Potent.

Egg Nogg has been a popular beverage dating back to colonial times. But back in the day, just like with the Julep, to use whiskey for the drink was considered a strictly backwoods affair, if not downright vulgar. But times change – and when the cognac became scarce and pennies needed to be pinched – that cheap bourbon started to look awfully good. This particular recipe from the Prohibition era has been widely disseminated online. It comes to us from George Hunt, an American businessman stationed in Shanghai, who secured the recipe from x, who got it from y, who got it from… In any case, Mr. Hunt made a big to-do over the annual making of the nogg, inviting only his 8 closest associates, and with varying degrees of honor attached to different tasks in the nogg-making. This preparation is pretty close to many modern homemade noggs.

Fresh Egg Nogg $8
Made to order. Cognac, rum, egg, sugar, milk, nutmeg, up.

Nogg Flight $7
3 shotglasses with 3 varieties of Nogg.

~ some nogg trivia ~
*”Eggnog” may be a contraction of “egg ‘n’ grog.”

*The cocktail shaker was developed for, and used to be referred to as an “egg nogg shaker.” Eventually bartenders started to figure out other uses for it!

*If there’s enough alcohol in the mixture, nogg may be aged as long as a year. Even at that late date, food scientists have found little to no harmful bacteria in homemade aged nogg; commercial eggnog… a completely different story.

*Booze-free eggnog is a thoroughly modern corruption. Our ancestors would’ve spit the stuff out in disgust.