Skip to main content
Drink

Egg Nog

A frothy drink made with egg, milk, sugar, liquor, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Egg Nog

Why it works: Rum and nutmeg work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 646 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Egg Nog

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Separate the egg white from the yolk.

  2. Beat the egg white until stiff peaks form.

  3. Stir the sugar into the egg white.

  4. Add the egg yolk and mix well.

  5. Stir in the liquor.

  6. Pour the mixture into a glass and gradually add milk while stirring.

  7. Grate a slight amount of nutmeg on top and serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Rum + nutmegtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Milk + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together967 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg
The whites whipped to stiff peaks give the drink a light, foamy body.
Milk
Adds liquid and creaminess, making the drink smooth and rich.
Sugar
Sweetens the drink and helps stabilise the whipped egg white.
Liquor
Adds alcohol flavour and aroma to the drink.

The step that matters

Beat the egg white until stiff peaks form. Egg white proteins unfold and trap air when beaten. Stopping at soft peaks gives a thin, flat foam, while over-beating can make it grainy and dry, so the drink loses its light texture.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, sugar, rum):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar, rum. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More egg nog recipes

Frozen 4 See all 38 →

You might also like

Vegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesBlackberry CordialBlackberry Cordial129 recipes