Why not sip eggnog while trimming your tree this year" You’ll be participating in a tradition that reaches back for centuries.

Alcohol and milk punches began in renaissance Europe, and traveled to the New World with its first European settlers. Captain John Smith reported that Jamestown settlers made eggnog in 1607.

In England, where eggnog was served both hot and cold at Christmastime, it was the trademark drink of the upper class.
"You have to remember, the average Londoner rarely saw a glass of milk," writes historian James Humes. "There was no refrigeration, and the farms belonged to the big estates." Mixing the dairy products with brandy or even sherry was thought to preserve them.
In America, farms and dairy products were plentiful, and so was rum. Rum, from the Caribbean, "was far more affordable than the heavily taxed brandy or other European spirits that it replaced at our forefathers’ holiday revels," writes Humes.

Even George Washington devised his own recipe, which included rye whisky, rum, and sherry and was reputed to be a stiff drink — perhaps living up to the old adage of making a man see double but feel single.

***
Mark Twain observed a century later that "too much of anything is bad, but too much whisky is just enough." Fanny Farmer, in her classic American cookbook, provides this recipe for eight quarts of eggnog with "just enough";

1 dozen eggs, separated

1/2 teaspoon salt

21/4 or more cups sugar

2 cups or more of bourbon

1/2 cup rum or whiskey

1 quart of milk

2 tablespoons of vanilla

3 pints of heavy cream

Nutmeg

Beat together the egg yolks and salt in a large mixing bowl, slowly adding 11/2 cups of the sugar. Continue beating until thick and pale.

Stir in the bourbon, rum, milk, and vanilla until well mixed. Beat the egg whites until foamy and slowly add the remaining 3/4 cup of sugar, continuing to beat until stiff and all the sugar has been incorporated.

Whip the cream until stiff.

Now fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture and then fold in the whipped cream. Taste and add more bourbon or sugar if necessary.

Pour into a punch bowl and sprinkle the top with nutmeg.

Cheers!

— Melissa Hale-Spencer