Eggnog Time Has Arrived -- Wa-hoo!

While culinary historians debate its exact lineage, most agree eggnog originated from the early medieval" British drink called posset, which was made with hot milk that was curdled with wine or ale and flavoured with spices. In the Middle Ages, posset was used as a cold and flu remedy. Posset was popular from medieval times to the 19th century. Eggs were added to some posset recipes; according to Time magazine, by the "13th century, monks were known to drink a posset with eggs and figs." A 17th century recipe for "My Lord of Carlisle’s Sack-Posset" uses a heated mixture of cream, whole cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, eighteen egg yolks, eight egg whites, and one pint of Sack wine (a fortified white wine related to sherry). At the end, sugar, ambergris and animal musk are stirred in. Posset was traditionally served in two-handled pots. The aristocracy had costly posset pots made from silver.

In Britain, the drink was originally popular among the aristocracy. "Milk, eggs, and sherry were foods of the wealthy, so eggnog was often used in toasts to prosperity and good health." Those who could afford milk and eggs and costly spirits mixed the eggnog with brandy, Madeira wine or sherry to make a drink similar to modern alcoholic egg nog.

It was that last part that made me go look for the history.
I figured that eggs were too precious for your average peasant to waste making a drink.

 

Alright , here is the eggnog frothing report. It does not totally froth like the milk does, and make those stiff peaks. It does get warmer and kind of foamy, though.
I have not decided whether it is worth doing this or not. Since it warms up the eggnog, it is better than putting in the cold eggnog right from the refrigerator, as far as making my coffee get cold faster.

I have a little heating stand that I set my coffee cup on , which helps to keep the cup warm, but it does not keep the coffee totally hot.

 

I wondered about doing this. Homemade eggnog starts with the yolks, and the whites are beat into a meringue, which is then folded in. Beating it a second time it liable to break it down.

I have no idea what process Elsie Borden uses.

 

It's funny, after I read that recipe, I don't recall the meringue part, either. But the last time I witnessed the making of homemade eggnog, I was probably 10 years old.

Funny how we used to not think twice making this stuff decades ago, and now that we've "progressed," things are too unsanitary to be eaten that way. I will say that if I made it with fresh eggs, I would wash them off immediately before breaking them.

 

And you had to use one of these:

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It's not quite the same without the smell of ozone mingled with evergreen.