A family recipe for eggnog that’s smooth as liquid silk, and kicks like a country mule
Once upon a time, when the year-end holidays rolled around, no one outdid me in the celebration staging arena. Beginning Thanksgiving weekend, I made dozens of fruitcakes (heavily doused with Irish whiskey and drenched weekly thereafter) and hundreds (sometimes thousands) of cookies. On the Big Days themselves I laid the table with Mom’s heirloom Irish linen and crystal, and cooked Crown Roasts of Pork, Standing Beef Rib Roasts, gargantuan Turkeys, and hefty Hams plus an eclectic assortment of baked, pureed and roasted veggies, and desserts that ranged from obligatory Plum Pudding and Pumpkin Pie to more exotic Cranberry Walnut Tart and Raspberry Sherry Trifle. While the sideboard held a variety of spirits to whet the appetite and finish the meal, nothing was ever more in demand than the seasonal special: rich, creamy, frothy, heady Eggnog.