“Eggnog is a drink that successfully transports you to your grandma’s home,” says Max Overstrom-Coleman, proprietor of Wolf Tree, a cocktail bar in White River Junction, Vermont. For him, sustaining the nostalgia of the drink is vital. As a vacation season mainstay, a superb eggnog evokes a sensory expertise—its velvety, easy texture, custardy flavors and of entirety of heat spices work in good concord. These are the quintessential components for Overstrom-Coleman’s tackle the drink, the winner in Punch’s blind style take a look at.
The batched recipe is easy and silky, virtually like “sipping a milkshake or a half-melted ice cream,” he says. It’s “the expression of what an eggnog needs to be,” a easy drink.
Although he constructed his spiked recipe on a trio of booze components—bourbon, rum and Cognac—his intention wasn’t to overcomplicate the drink; as a substitute, he felt {that a} mix was one of the best ways to mirror a mixture of his favourite renditions of the beverage he’d been provided at his grandparents’ and household pals’ properties through the years.
As a result of do-it-yourself eggnog usually requires a beneficiant serving to of eggs and cream, which might consequence within the dairy element overshadowing the booze, he turned to an aged rum “to construct up its spine” and add aromatics and physique to the cocktail.
As for the bourbon, he experimented with various wheated choices, resembling Maker’s Mark, and bourbons with a low-rye mash invoice, resembling Eagle Uncommon, however he realized he favored one thing a contact extra peppery to chop by the creaminess of the cocktail. He finally landed on Previous Grand-Dad, a bourbon with a considerable quantity of rye in its mash invoice, lending a refined warmth to the eggnog. “The rye element makes it much less mushy and candy, [and] a bit extra punchy and bracing,” says Overstrom-Coleman.
After choosing these spirits, one thing was nonetheless lacking. The mixture of a spicy bourbon and a wealthy darkish rum yielded a “lack of lightness,” as Overstrom-Coleman places it, so he looked for one thing to additional lower by eggnog’s generally cloying flavors. He reached for Pierre Ferrand’s 1840 Cognac, which added floral and honey blossom flavors to the mix. “It reduces the general weightiness in your mouth,” he says.
Subsequent, there wouldn’t be do-it-yourself eggnog with out the eggs. Overstrom-Coleman’s recipe requires complete eggs; he separates the yolk from the whites and vigorously whips every half individually. The yolks mix with sugar, whereas the egg whites kind mushy, meringue-like peaks, imparting an airiness to the completed drink. Additionally they bind the components collectively in a singular means, particularly if you happen to age the eggnog, says Overstrom-Coleman, who’s an enormous proponent of the tactic. He has stored a batch of eggnog in his walk-in fridge at Wolf Tree for nearly a yr now. (For individuals who wish to attempt getting older, he suggests merely conserving a container of a batch refrigerated for as much as a yr and giving the ready eggnog an occasional shake to rehomogenize the components.)
Whereas he’s put lots of consideration into the spirits and the tactic behind the drink, the largest secret to Overstrom-Coleman’s eggnog is the contemporary components out there to him in Vermont. “Don’t sleep on the dairy and eggs,” he says, grateful for the abundance and prime quality of native farm merchandise. He recommends utilizing contemporary heavy cream and complete milk, versus skim, as a result of the dairy components make up a big a part of the drink, and also you’ll undoubtedly style the nuances within the eggnog if you happen to splurge for top-shelf components.
Whereas Overstrom-Coleman’s eggnog is a celebration of what’s regionally out there, it’s additionally meant to be a type of escape. A marine biologist by coaching, Overstrom-Coleman’s earlier job took him seafaring all around the world, leaving him with numerous good reminiscences at far-flung locations. That have outlined his method to cocktails. “A well-crafted cocktail permits the trimmings of the day to fall off so you may reset and recharge,” he says. Whether or not it’s a beachside drink or a fireplace eggnog, that spirit of rest prevails in Overstrom-Coleman’s cocktails: “It ought to style like trip in your glass.”
