People seem to have strong feelings about egg nog, mostly negative. I wondered how much of that might be because of commercially available egg nog, since often times home-made items will taste vastly different from something purchased at the store. Such is certainly true of chocolate chip cookies and bread, to name a couple. A lot of factors play into that I suppose. I decided to whip up a batch and find out.

The recipe I followed was of course Alton Brown's, he being my go-to guy with recipes. Be warned that it calls for raw eggs which some people are sissies about. Not me, no sir.

Simply put, you make the nog in two steps. First is whipping up the yolks with sugar. Then toss in the cream, milk and nutmeg (I had to substitute cinnamon as I only to late discovered I was out of nutmeg). In another bowl you whip up the whites to stiff peaks, then combine. I chose to whip the eggs by hand and let's just say I don't plan to do that again. Ouch.

The biggest difference from store bought (and I'm going from memory on this) was the viscosity. Store bought nog is pretty thick, kinda makes you feel 10 pounds heavier after drinking it. Alton Brown's was nothing like that. I started with 3 cups of liquid, plus eggs and ended up with about 6 cups of egg nog. All the difference was air and I could definitely taste it.

I also liked that I could add my own flavoring. As I mentioned, I used cinnamon which was good. I also tried a bit with hazelnut syrup and that was nice too. I bet most of your coffee syrups would be yummy too.

Bottom line, this egg nog is a keeper.