Ask any New Orleanian about eggnog and also you would possibly hear crickets. In a metropolis outlined by its hedonism, different frothy drinks—Brandy Milk Punch, say, or the Ramos Gin Fizz—have louder siren calls. Ask a New Orleanian about frozen eggnog, although, and also you’ll unlock a core reminiscence.
For native New Orleanians like myself, it’s a citywide custom to drive down St. Charles Avenue (or journey the garland-bedecked streetcar) to absorb the adorned historic mansions and the thick, wandering oak limbs that cover the streets, trimmed in Christmas lights, outsized ornaments and Spanish moss like tinsel. The right drink pairing for these events is a Cajun Eggnog Daiquiri in a big Styrofoam cup. Round Thanksgiving, the seasonal taste makes its return alongside the perennial 190 Octane and technicolor Margarita. Behind the walk-up counters and contained in the drive-thru joints, an adolescent flips a lever and out comes your drink, clean as a 7-Eleven Slurpee, which tastes like nutmeg in the identical manner that Lacroix tastes like fruit.
From-scratch eggnog—spirits, sugar, egg and cream, shaken into oblivion—is basically ice cream base with booze. Throw that right into a Daiquiri machine and, as an alternative of a slushy drink, you get frozen-solid milkfat and a gnarly cleanup job. Bartenders wanting extra nuance with their frozen nogs should get inventive.
At Gris-Gris, the Zombi Nog is spiked with slightly further bourbon and praline liqueur, and the key ingredient—powdered soft-serve combine—performs properly with the machine. Its title is a nod to Haitian tradition, apt in a spot often known as the northernmost Caribbean metropolis, and the drink is dessert-y however doesn’t smack you within the face. The Little Copa takes a lighter, brighter method in its Copa Nog, with coconut cream, lime zest and Angostura bitters to perk up the contemporary nutmeg. Founder Christy Hebert began the pop-up stand as a COVID-19 aspect hustle, propelled by a pipe dream to drop out of mainstream society, transfer to an island and serve Daiquiris from a tuk-tuk. Not like the eggnog of her household holidays, Hebert’s is served on the rocks for concern of coconut cream gunking up her machine, however true to custom, it makes its extensively anticipated and short-lived comeback each December.
In the meantime, tucked right into a French Quarter aspect avenue, Manolito, a bar impressed by the legendary El Floridita in Havana, serves made-to-order Daiquiris from a row of blenders on a bar not than a Good automotive. True to the ethos of El Floridita, Manolito homeowners Konrad Kantor, Chris Hannah and Nick Dietrich deal with frozen cocktails with the identical integrity as every other class of basic cocktail. Their Eggnog Daiquiri is not any exception.
The key is within the ratios. Kantor and Hannah homed in on a method by extrapolating from Cuban classics, recruiting a small however mighty shot of Dietrich’s eggnog to drag every little thing into aid in a lot the identical manner lime does in a standard frozen Floridita. As with the Cajun eggnog ritual, with this Daiquiri, says Konrad, “we’re simply attempting to have a good time the place it got here from and honor the way it began.”
