Egg Nogg, the 1862 Bar Eggnog
Reader ratingsOne egg, a wine-glass of Cognac, half as much St. Croix rum, sugar and a third of a tumbler of milk, shaken with shaved ice and topped with nutmeg: Jerry Thomas’s eggnog of 1862.
- Recipe makes
- 1 drink
- Prep
- Total
Egg nogg in a heavy glass tumbler, unstrained over crushed ice, with grated nutmeg.
The story behind the recipe
Jerry Thomas’s Egg Nogg is a single drink made in a large bar glass: an egg, a spoonful of sugar dissolved in water, a wine-glass of Cognac, half as much Santa Cruz rum and a third of a tumbler of milk, shaken with shaved ice and finished with nutmeg. He printed it as No. 81 in How to Mix Drinks, or, The Bon-Vivant’s Companion (New York, 1862), turning the punch-bowl eggnog into a drink made to order.
A shaker behind every bar
The older bowl eggnogs had their whites beaten on their own. Thomas puts everything into the glass at once and leaves the frothing to the shaker: “Every well ordered bar has a tin egg-nogg ‘shaker,’ which is a great aid in mixing this beverage.” It is served straight from the shaker, ice and all.
Santa Cruz rum came from St. Croix, then part of the Danish West Indies. The same page has a Hot Egg Nogg, “very popular in California,” made with boiling water in place of ice. Two pages on, General Harrison’s Egg Nogg has no milk or spirit at all: one egg, a teaspoon and a half of sugar and a few lumps of ice, shaken with a tumbler of cider. Thomas calls it “General Harrison’s favorite beverage” without saying how he knew; William Henry Harrison had won the presidency in 1840 on a log-cabin and hard-cider campaign.
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Measuring by the glass
William Kitchiner’s Cook’s Oracle (1822) puts a wine-glass at 2 fluid ounces, so the Cognac is 2 fl oz and the rum 1 fl oz. Thomas measures the milk and ice by the tumbler, the large bar glass he names at the top, but gives no size for it; we take it as 12 ounces, which makes a third of a tumbler of milk 1/2 cup and a quarter of a tumbler of ice about 1/3 cup. The drink is opaque and pale cream. With the ice melted in, it comes to about 12% alcohol, two US standard drinks of spirit.
The egg stays raw: use a pasteurized egg in the US, or a British Lion egg in the UK. For a cooked base, heat the egg, sugar, water and milk, stirring, to 160 °F (71 °C), chill it, then shake it with the spirits and ice.
Thomas’s milk drink with no egg comes earlier in the book as his Milk Punch. For an alcohol-free cup of egg and milk, Lettice Bryan’s Egg Gruel of 1839 is stirred over the heat until hot and safe. The Christmas whiskey that set off a riot at West Point in 1826 is in How Was Eggnog First Made?
(Use large bar glass.)
1 table-spoonful of fine sugar, dissolved with
1 do. cold water, 1 egg.
1 wine-glass of Cognac brandy.
½ do. Santa Cruz rum.
⅓ tumblerful of milk.
Fill the tumbler ¼ full with shaved ice, shake the ingredients until they are thoroughly mixed together, and grate a little nutmeg on top. Every well ordered bar has a tin egg-nogg “shaker,” which is a great aid in mixing this beverage.
Recipe makes: 1 drink
Ingredients
For 1 drink. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 1 drink.
- Superfine sugar1 tbsp
- Cold water1 tbsp
- Large pasteurized egg1
- Cognac2 fl oz
- St. Croix rum1 fl oz
- Whole milk1/2 cup
- Crushed ice1/3 cup
- Grated nutmeg, to finish
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 1 tbsp superfine sugar
- 1 tbsp cold water
- 1 large pasteurized egg
- 2 fl oz Cognac
- 1 fl oz St. Croix rum
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 1/3 cup crushed ice
- grated nutmeg, to finish
Equipment
Cocktail shaker
Large tumbler, about 12 fl oz
Nutmeg grater
Instructions
Stir the superfine sugar into the cold water in a cocktail shaker until it dissolves.
Crack in the large pasteurized egg and add the Cognac, St. Croix rum and whole milk.
Add the crushed ice, close the shaker and shake hard for about 15 seconds, until the egg is fully mixed in and the drink is frothy.
Pour everything, ice included, into a large tumbler.
Grate a little nutmeg over the top and serve at once.
Nutrition
390calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 1 drink
Estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for 80-proof spirits, whole raw egg, whole milk and granulated sugar.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
This is one drink. Shake no more than two at a time, and give each its own egg.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
“Do.” is ditto: the second tablespoon is of water, and the “½ do.” of rum is half a wine-glass. The 12-ounce glass is our choice; in a smaller tumbler, cut the milk to 1/3 cup and the ice to 1/4 cup.
Any good Cognac or other grape brandy works. St. Croix rum is still made; another light, dry rum can stand in.
For Thomas’s Hot Egg Nogg, leave out the ice, shake the rest briefly, pour it into a warmed mug and stir in about 1/2 cup of boiling water (our amount; Thomas gives none). The hot water does not cook the egg, so it still needs to be pasteurized or Lion-marked.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
Jerry Thomas, How to Mix Drinks, or, The Bon-Vivant’s Companion (New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1862), No. 81, p. 40
See the original pages (scan at Internet Archive) (opens in a new tab)
Recipe details
- Drink family
- Cocktails & Mixed Drinks
- Region
- American
- Era
- 19th century
- Source decade
- 1860s
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Occasion
- Christmas