Sharkbait’s Cocktail of the Week: Use Your Noggin

Christmas weekend is finally upon us. Hopefully you’ve got all your shopping done, both for gifts and for food. Food especially since in my opinion, Christmas dinner is the dinner of the year, and it absolutely sucks to be missing a key ingredient for that and have to go on a trek to go find it at a store that is open somewhere.

Not like I’m speaking from experience here or anything…

I digress. This week, I’m tackling eggnog. Now you may be asking yourself “Eggnog? Didn’t you already do that?” You would be correct. However, the main difference here is that this drink is meant to be a one off, and not a serving for a party. This drink comes from the “How To Drink” channel on YouTube. I highly recommend this channel, and this guy is what I hope this regular post turns into. Everyone has to start somewhere right?

.5 oz. Simple Syrup

.5 oz. Maraschino Liqueur

2 oz. Bourbon (or in my case rye)

1 whole egg

3 oz. Whole milk

Nutmeg

Orange zest (optional)

Add the simple syrup, maraschino liqueur, egg and whiskey into a shaker. Dry shake to break up the egg yolk. Add 1 whole large ice cube, and cracked ice from another cube. Shake and strain into a rocks glass. Top with the 3 ounces of milk and add nutmeg and orange zest if you have an orange on hand. 

This smells like the holidays. The nutmeg aroma coming off of this thing is the first smell I get, and certainly the most powerful. I detect a slight hint of the maraschino hidden in there if I’m not mistaken.

The sip is excellent. It has a very smooth and creamy mouth feel, but thankfully is not as heavy as regular eggnog is. It doesn’t coat your palate so you avoid the feeling that your tongue has a coating of eggnog on it for 5 minutes after you’ve taken a sip. The milk acts as a solid base for the other flavors to build on, and the flavor that really dominates is the maraschino liqueur. I get a lot of that bright, boozy flavor about a second or two after taking the sip. That flavor is pretty constant throughout the sip, but after a second or two, the rye comes in. I don’t get a lot of rye flavor per se, but I get its spice and alcoholic zip that adds a little more of a burn underneath the cream and cherry flavors working in concert early on.

The finish maintains the flavor status quo established when the rye enters the fray. The maraschino does hang out on the palate for a good 5-10 seconds after you finish, so if you were hitting this drink hard, you may start tasting more maraschino, but I’m guessing that wont be a problem for the majority of drinkers, since egg and milk based drinks don’t really make the best shooting and/or chugging cocktails.

Definitely go ahead and make this one if you want to go outside the box (or carton) and get a little creative with eggnog, but not have to make an entire batch that should feed 10-12 people. I also recommend you use this as a reward for cooking or baking christmas delights. For example, Mrs. Sharkbait makes killer molasses cookies, but working the dry ingredients into the wet needs to be done by hand since the dough gets so thick it poses risks to the motors of stand mixers. So 2 batches of dough mixing had me earning one of these. Anyway, enjoy the holiday, and Happy Christmas everyone!

(Banner image found here)