Booze for Beginners: Christmas Eggnog (Tara Style)

It's that most wonderful time of the year, and what better way to celebrate than with a lovely glass of heady, well-spiced eggnog! The drink isn't very popular in Australia, as it's mostly associated with cold weather. I can understand why, the flavours are warm and spicy.

But the thing is.. Eggnog is refrigerated, so it's very appropriate for our climate. Time to get 'noggy me thinks!

As the name suggests, this tasty beverage contains eggs, so vegans beware, you're in for a scare! Luckily my housies and I are the proud owners of 3 happy chooks who provide us with all the eggs we need. They also get to rome free in the garden along with their guardian and all-round lazy-bones friend Bobby.

Bobby-cat, Martha, June & Peggy

Most 'nog recipes will suggest you use brandy in your mix, but I opted for sherry. Not only did I already own it, but I find that it matches really well with the flavour of egg yolks in drinks (don't be too scared by the thought of yolks!). I used Ramos Pinto, a Portuguese sherry because I had it, you know, lying around. I also used my Home Spiced Rum to shake things up and make it nice and christmas-like. You can use normal rum, bourbon or cognac if you like.

Don't be worried if you don't have the exact alcoholic ingredients that I use for everything. I just happen to be in the fortunate position that I've had a lot of alcohol given to me over the years of working in the industry, and haven't had the time to drink it all yet!

I made a BIG batch of the stuff so I would have enough to take to a dinner party, and still enjoy it at home with some more good friends. It's the festive season, and I'll take any excuse to get festive.. Especially left-over eggnog. "Woops! I made too much.. Looks like we're getting drunk again!" ** YAY! **

Ingredients

The original recipe for this came from a site called Eggnog Recipe. I tweaked their Traditional Eggnog to my own liking. There are so many more types of 'nog in there. I encourage you to look around.. but still make my one, 'cos it's the best.

10 eggs (separated)

400ml thickened cream

400ml full cream milk

1 1/2 cups caster sugar

200ml Spiced Rum

100ml Sherry

Method

In theory you need 3 bowls to make eggnog, but I managed easily with 2. You also need to allow about 7 hrs before you want to actually drink it, most of that being chill time (you chill, the nog chills. Good times all 'round)

1 Separate your eggs and put the egg-whites in the fridge for later. Then add yolks and sugar to a mixing bowl and beat until the mixture is stiff.

2 Add sherry and rum slowly, mixing as you go.

3 Cover this mixture and put it in the fridge. Leave to chill for 6 hours (this is also your chill time, so go read a book, fight crime, anything awesome and relaxing)

4 About 30-45mins before you want to serve it up get your egg whites into another mixing bowl and beat them until stiff peaks form. Fold this into your yolky mixture.

What can I say? Other than.. my peaks, well, they're STIFF!

5 Clean up your egg white bowl and put in your cream, beat the cream until thick. You want it to just fall off a spoon. If you get it to scone 'n' jam consistency you've gone too far. Start again in this case. You're better off having it 'underbeaten' than 'overbeaten'. Fold the cream into your mixture and then transfer to a jug.

6 Give the jug a quick whisk to make sure everything is combined properly and so you get a nice frothy head. At this stage your drink should feel nice and thick to pass the whisk through. Pour into vessels of your choice and grate some fresh nutmeg over the top (ground nutmeg can also be sprinkled on if it's what you have).

7 Enjoy with friends! Below are some happy snaps from my second round of 'noggy good times. Drink it responsibly, maybe with some sweet treats. We had ours with lovely marzipan filled Stollen. A bit of a Northern Hemisphere style christmas treat, but hey I'm too poor for prawns!