Eggnog
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40 free Eggnog trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Eggnog is one of the few drinks with its own season. For a few weeks each winter it turns up in cartons, punch bowls and coffee cups, and then it vanishes for the rest of the year. Behind the glass is a longer story than most people expect: a medieval ancestor, an argument over where the name came from, and a Christmas party at a military academy that got badly out of hand. This quiz covers the drink from every side. There are questions on what goes into a classic recipe and how it is kept safe, on the spirits and spices that different regions swear by, and on the history that carried it from British tables to American farms. A good share of the questions travel further, to the creamy, eggy relatives poured at Christmas in Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe and Japan. It is pitched for a holiday party, a family quiz night or a festive pub round. The early questions are friendly, the later ones reward real food-and-drink obsessives, and every answer comes with a short explanation worth repeating over the punch bowl.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Makers trace the Dutch egg liqueur advocaat back to a Brazilian drink made with which fruit?
Avocado
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.
Q 02Which future Confederate leader joined the 1826 Eggnog Riot as a cadet yet escaped court-martial?
Jefferson Davis
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.
Q 03Which bacterium did Rockefeller University scientists find dead after three weeks in boozy eggnog?
Salmonella
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.
Q 04According to tradition, who first made rompope, Mexico's answer to eggnog, in 17th-century Puebla?
Convent nuns
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.
Q 05Which Founding Father recorded a 1763 recipe for milk punch, a brandy-and-lemon relative of eggnog?
Benjamin Franklin
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.
Q 06Chile's Christmas drink cola de mono, a milky mix of aguardiente and coffee, has a name meaning what?
Monkey's tail
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.
Q 07Taxes on brandy and wine led colonial Americans to spike their eggnog with which cheaper spirit?
Rum
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.
Q 08Which spice, the seed of a tree native to Indonesia, is traditionally grated over eggnog?
Nutmeg
Nutmeg shares its fruit with a second spice, mace, which is the red covering wrapped around the seed.
Q 09Coquito, the creamy coconut cousin of eggnog, originated on which Caribbean island?
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico's coquito means little coconut, and families pour it into shot glasses after dinner from recipes handed down the generations.
Q 10The hot Christmas cocktail called a Tom and Jerry, mixed since the 1820s, takes its name from what?
A book about London
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.
Q 11At which military academy did smuggled whiskey turn a Christmas party into the 1826 Eggnog Riot?
West Point
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.
Q 12The Eggnog Riot of Christmas 1826, a drunken cadet rebellion, is also known by which other name?
The Grog Mutiny
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.
Q 13In the American South, which spirit is the traditional choice for spiking eggnog?
Bourbon
Bourbon took over after the Revolutionary War disrupted imported spirits and Americans turned to their own domestic whiskey.
Q 21A Tom and Jerry, the hot cousin of eggnog, starts with which ingredient beaten until stiff?
Egg whites
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.
Q 22Which coffee chain's winter hits, the eggnog latte and peppermint mocha, led it to develop an autumn drink in 2003?
Starbucks
Starbucks answered with the pumpkin spice latte, which its team began developing in January 2003 to repeat those winter successes.
Q 23Besides the United States, which country has a strong tradition of drinking eggnog every Christmas?
Canada
Canada shares the custom, and grocery stores in both countries stock ready-made cartons only for the holiday season.
Q 14Eggnog probably grew out of which medieval drink of hot milk curdled with ale or wine?
Posset
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.
Q 15In Britain, early eggnog was mainly a drink for which group?
The aristocracy
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.
Q 16The French name for eggnog, lait de poule, literally translates into English as what?
Hen's milk
Hen's milk is what French speakers call it, and the phrase is printed on bilingual cartons from dairy brands such as Neilson.
Q 17Which cocktail tops the egg liqueur advocaat with sparkling lemonade?
Snowball
A Snowball is roughly equal parts advocaat and lemonade, usually sharpened with a squeeze of fresh lime juice.
Q 18Eierpunsch, the warm eggnog cousin sold at German Christmas markets, is made with which alcohol?
White wine
White wine is heated with egg yolks, sugar and vanilla, and some recipes enrich the punch further with cream or custard.
Q 19Poland's egg liqueur ajerkoniak is named after cognac but is actually based on which spirit?
Vodka
Vodka replaces the brandy of Dutch advocaat, even though the Polish name joins the German word for eggs to the French word cognac.
Q 20Which Italian dessert, a foamy cousin of eggnog, whisks egg yolks with sugar and sweet wine?
Zabaglione
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.
Q 24Advocaat, the name of a thick egg liqueur, is also the everyday Dutch word for which profession?
Lawyer
Lawyer is the plain meaning, and one old Dutch dictionary explains the drink as a throat-soother for people who must speak in public.
Q 25In Japan, tamagozake, a cup of heated sake with sugar and a raw egg, is a folk remedy for what?
The common cold
The common cold got the egg treatment because eggs were costly and prized as nourishing food when the custom took hold.
Q 26In Peru, eggnog goes by a name meaning bible and is spiked with which national grape spirit?
Pisco
Pisco is distilled from grape juice in the winemaking regions of Peru and Chile, and Peruvians order the eggy version as biblia con pisco.
Q 27Ponche crema, a Christmas cream liqueur that spread to nearby Trinidad, comes from which country?
Venezuela
Venezuela's best-known brand dates to 1900, when the perfumer Eliodoro González began selling a recipe that is still kept secret.
Q 28Kremas, a coconut Christmas drink often likened to coquito, comes from which Caribbean country?
Haiti
Haiti's kremas changes with the map: the north often adds pineapple flavouring, while the south leans harder on coconut.
Q 29A noggin, the old word that may have given eggnog its name, was originally what kind of object?
A small wooden mug
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.
Q 30Colonial taverns finished flip, an ale-and-egg relative of eggnog, by plunging what into the tankard?
A red-hot iron poker
A red-hot iron poker, called a flipdog or loggerhead, made the drink foam and gave it a slightly bitter, burned taste.