Make the season bright with Reindeer Knoll - a joyful guide to Christmas traditions, history, activities, and songs. Discover the origins of beloved Christmas customs like decorating trees, Santa Claus, and gift-giving. Learn fun holiday activities like baking cookies, building snowmen, and Christmas crafts. Sing along to classic Christmas carols and songs the whole family will love.
Eggnog
Eggnog thought to have originated in the British Isles, composed of beaten eggs, sugar, and cream or milk and typically served during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. A sort of liquid custard, eggnog often contains a small quantity of liquor as well, with rum, brandy, cognac, and whisky being among the typical alcoholic amendments.
It began in the UK as a kind of 'posset' (hot milk mixed with wine or ale and spices). There are a very few old mentions of eggs being mixed in as well. During the middle ages, possets were used to help treat colds and the flu. (Now the word posset is normally used for a cold set milk pudding which was developed from the drink in the 16th century.) 'Posher' possets were also drunk by the upper classes in the UK, where it was made with Sherry or Brandy rather than beer or ale.
There are some different theories about how the 'nog' in eggnog came about. One theory says that 'nog' was the name given to strong beer in East Anglia and when eggs were added to it, it became eggnog. Another theory says the nog comes from the word 'noggin' a middle English word for a small and carved wooden mug which was used to serve alcohol (and noggin is still a song term for your head!). And yet another say the nog comes from nugg or nugged ale, a Scottish term meaning ale which had been warmed by putting a poker from the fire in it!
Nobody seems to know the exact origins of eggnog, but it originated in England centuries ago. According to a food blog (which now appears to be defunct), written by Frederick Douglass Opie, a food history professor at Babson College, it originally was a wintertime drink for the British aristocracy. The name evidently came from two words – grog, another word for rum, and noggins, a word for the small wooden mugs that the drink was served in.
