“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 essential. As a vacation season mainstay, a very good eggnog evokes a sensory expertise—its velvety, clean texture, custardy flavors and of completion of heat spices work in good concord. These are the quintessential parts for Overstrom-Coleman’s tackle the drink, the winner in Punch’s blind style check.
The batched recipe is clean and silky, nearly 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 parts—bourbon, rum and Cognac—his intention wasn’t to overcomplicate the drink; as an alternative, he felt {that a} mix was the easiest way to replicate a mixture of his favourite renditions of the beverage he’d been provided at his grandparents’ and household pals’ houses through the years.
As a result of home made eggnog sometimes requires a beneficiant serving to of eggs and cream, which may outcome within the dairy part 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 quite a few wheated choices, reminiscent of Maker’s Mark, and bourbons with a low-rye mash invoice, reminiscent of Eagle Uncommon, however he realized he favored one thing a contact extra peppery to chop via the creaminess of the cocktail. He ultimately landed on Outdated Grand-Dad, a bourbon with a considerable quantity of rye in its mash invoice, lending a refined warmth to the eggnog. “The rye part makes it much less delicate and candy, [and] a bit extra punchy and bracing,” says Overstrom-Coleman.
After deciding on 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 minimize via eggnog’s typically 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 home made 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 delicate, meringue-like peaks, imparting an airiness to the completed drink. In addition they bind the elements collectively in a novel means, particularly if you happen to age the eggnog, says Overstrom-Coleman, who’s a giant proponent of the strategy. He has stored a batch of eggnog in his walk-in fridge at Wolf Tree for nearly a 12 months now. (For many who need to attempt getting older, he suggests merely protecting a container of a batch refrigerated for as much as a 12 months and giving the ready eggnog an occasional shake to rehomogenize the elements.)
Whereas he’s put quite a lot of consideration into the spirits and the strategy behind the drink, the most important secret to Overstrom-Coleman’s eggnog is the recent elements accessible to him in Vermont. “Don’t sleep on the dairy and eggs,” he says, grateful for the abundance and top quality of native farm merchandise. He recommends utilizing recent heavy cream and complete milk, versus skim, as a result of the dairy elements 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 elements.
Whereas Overstrom-Coleman’s eggnog is a celebration of what’s domestically accessible, it’s additionally meant to be a type of escape. A marine biologist by coaching, Overstrom-Coleman’s earlier job took him seafaring everywhere in the world, leaving him with numerous good reminiscences at far-flung locations. That have outlined his strategy to cocktails. “A well-crafted cocktail permits the trimmings of the day to fall off so you possibly can reset and recharge,” he says. Whether or not it’s a beachside drink or a fireplace eggnog, that spirit of leisure prevails in Overstrom-Coleman’s cocktails: “It ought to style like trip in your glass.”
