40 Fun Facts About Eggnog

Makers trace the Dutch egg liqueur advocaat back to a Brazilian drink made with which fruit?

Avocado was the base of abacate, the Brazilian drink that makers say Dutch colonists copied. Back in Europe the fruit would not grow, so egg yolk took its place and the name stuck.

Which future Confederate leader joined the 1826 Eggnog Riot as a cadet yet escaped court-martial?

Jefferson Davis was put under house arrest with 21 other cadets after the drunken Christmas party, but he was never tried. Twenty cadets and one enlisted soldier were.

Which bacterium did Rockefeller University scientists find dead after three weeks in boozy eggnog?

Salmonella, the main danger in raw eggs, was still at risky levels after a week but had vanished by the third. Alcohol and refrigeration did the work.

According to tradition, who first made rompope, Mexico's answer to eggnog, in 17th-century Puebla?

Convent nuns at Puebla's Santa Clara are credited with the first rompope, one of many sweet recipes to come out of the city's colonial religious houses.

Which Founding Father recorded a 1763 recipe for milk punch, a brandy-and-lemon relative of eggnog?

Benjamin Franklin's recipe added brandy and lemon to hot milk so that it curdled. Alcoholic eggnog was itself once known as milk punch or egg milk punch.

Chile's Christmas drink cola de mono, a milky mix of aguardiente and coffee, has a name meaning what?

Monkey's tail may come from the long-tailed monkey on the Spanish anise bottles the drink was first sold in. Coffee turns it brown rather than eggnog yellow.

Taxes on brandy and wine led colonial Americans to spike their eggnog with which cheaper spirit?

Rum arrived cheaply through the Caribbean trade, and American farms had milk and eggs to spare. Together they turned a British luxury into an everyday colonial drink.

Which spice, the seed of a tree native to Indonesia, is traditionally grated over eggnog?

Nutmeg shares its fruit with a second spice, mace, which is the red covering wrapped around the seed.

Coquito, the creamy coconut cousin of eggnog, originated on which Caribbean island?

Puerto Rico's coquito means little coconut, and families pour it into shot glasses after dinner from recipes handed down the generations.

The hot Christmas cocktail called a Tom and Jerry, mixed since the 1820s, takes its name from what?

A book about London, Pierce Egan's 1821 hit Life in London, starred the men-about-town Jerry Hawthorn and Corinthian Tom. The cartoon cat and mouse came more than a century later.

At which military academy did smuggled whiskey turn a Christmas party into the 1826 Eggnog Riot?

West Point had told its cadets their Christmas eggnog would be alcohol-free, so a few of them ferried in whiskey by boat across the Hudson.

The Eggnog Riot of Christmas 1826, a drunken cadet rebellion, is also known by which other name?

The Grog Mutiny left smashed windows and broken stair rails, and one cadet fired a pistol into an officer's room. Seventy cadets were implicated.

In the American South, which spirit is the traditional choice for spiking eggnog?

Bourbon took over after the Revolutionary War disrupted imported spirits and Americans turned to their own domestic whiskey.

Eggnog probably grew out of which medieval drink of hot milk curdled with ale or wine?

Posset was being enriched with eggs and figs by 13th-century monks. In Shakespeare's Macbeth, Lady Macbeth drugs the guards' possets before the murder.

In Britain, early eggnog was mainly a drink for which group?

The aristocracy raised it in toasts to prosperity and good health, because milk, eggs and sherry were foods of the wealthy. Dairy-rich America later made it a drink for everyone.

The French name for eggnog, lait de poule, literally translates into English as what?

Hen's milk is what French speakers call it, and the phrase is printed on bilingual cartons from dairy brands such as Neilson.

Which cocktail tops the egg liqueur advocaat with sparkling lemonade?

A Snowball is roughly equal parts advocaat and lemonade, usually sharpened with a squeeze of fresh lime juice.

Eierpunsch, the warm eggnog cousin sold at German Christmas markets, is made with which alcohol?

White wine is heated with egg yolks, sugar and vanilla, and some recipes enrich the punch further with cream or custard.

Poland's egg liqueur ajerkoniak is named after cognac but is actually based on which spirit?

Vodka replaces the brandy of Dutch advocaat, even though the Polish name joins the German word for eggs to the French word cognac.

Which Italian dessert, a foamy cousin of eggnog, whisks egg yolks with sugar and sweet wine?

Zabaglione is cooked gently over simmering water and classically made with Marsala. In France it became sabayon, and in Argentina it is a popular ice cream flavour.

A Tom and Jerry, the hot cousin of eggnog, starts with which ingredient beaten until stiff?

Egg whites are whipped into peaks and folded into the sweetened yolks to make a batter. Hot milk and spirits are then stirred in, one cup at a time.

Which coffee chain's winter hits, the eggnog latte and peppermint mocha, led it to develop an autumn drink in 2003?

Starbucks answered with the pumpkin spice latte, which its team began developing in January 2003 to repeat those winter successes.

Besides the United States, which country has a strong tradition of drinking eggnog every Christmas?

Canada shares the custom, and grocery stores in both countries stock ready-made cartons only for the holiday season.

Advocaat, the name of a thick egg liqueur, is also the everyday Dutch word for which profession?

Lawyer is the plain meaning, and one old Dutch dictionary explains the drink as a throat-soother for people who must speak in public.

In Japan, tamagozake, a cup of heated sake with sugar and a raw egg, is a folk remedy for what?

The common cold got the egg treatment because eggs were costly and prized as nourishing food when the custom took hold.

In Peru, eggnog goes by a name meaning bible and is spiked with which national grape spirit?

Pisco is distilled from grape juice in the winemaking regions of Peru and Chile, and Peruvians order the eggy version as biblia con pisco.

Ponche crema, a Christmas cream liqueur that spread to nearby Trinidad, comes from which country?

Venezuela's best-known brand dates to 1900, when the perfumer Eliodoro González began selling a recipe that is still kept secret.

Kremas, a coconut Christmas drink often likened to coquito, comes from which Caribbean country?

Haiti's kremas changes with the map: the north often adds pineapple flavouring, while the south leans harder on coconut.

A noggin, the old word that may have given eggnog its name, was originally what kind of object?

A small wooden mug, carved from the burr of a tree, was the noggin taverns used to serve alcohol. The word later came to mean a quarter of a pint.

Colonial taverns finished flip, an ale-and-egg relative of eggnog, by plunging what into the tankard?

A red-hot iron poker, called a flipdog or loggerhead, made the drink foam and gave it a slightly bitter, burned taste.

Old recipes for egg flip, Britain's name for eggnog, made the drink smooth by which method?

Pouring between pitchers until the drink was as smooth as cream is the step an 1822 recipe gives, and bartender Jerry Thomas called repeated pouring the essential of every flip.

Which French custard sauce is drunk at Christmas in the American South as boiled custard?

Crème anglaise is just sugar, egg yolks and hot milk, usually flavoured with vanilla. Southerners also call the sippable version drinking custard.

Which US agency's rules say a carton sold as eggnog must contain at least 1% egg yolk solids?

The FDA standard also demands at least 6% milkfat and says the drink must be pasteurized or ultra-pasteurized.

Young men of which 19th-century US city went house to house on New Year's Day drinking eggnog?

Baltimore callers faced one challenge: finishing their rounds still standing. Recipes of the era did not help, with one calling for half a gallon of brandy.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines nog as a strong beer once brewed in which part of England?

East Anglia's nog was a strong ale from Norfolk, and it is one of several rival explanations for the second half of the word eggnog.

Italy's Vov egg liqueur was created by a Padua confectioner with yolks left over from making what?

Nougat uses only the white of the egg, so pastry chef Gian Battista Pezziol blended his spare yolks with Marsala wine and alcohol.

Grain Nog, a pioneering vegan eggnog of 1981, was based on a Japanese drink made from what?

Fermented rice makes amazake, a sweet drink with little or no alcohol. Grain Nog had no eggs at all and came in plain, strawberry and carob flavours.

Carrageenan, a thickener allowed in shop-bought eggnog, is extracted from which natural material?

Red seaweed such as Irish moss yields carrageenan, which adds body to commercial recipes that use less egg and cream than homemade ones.

Ready-made Tom and Jerry batter is a Christmas supermarket staple in which US region?

The Upper Midwest keeps the old cocktail alive, with makers in Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas and Montana selling the batter every Christmas season.

In the United States, eggnog season traditionally opens with which holiday and runs through Christmas?

Thanksgiving marks the start of the few weeks when ready-made cartons reach grocery stores, though plenty of families still whisk their own at home.