Nogoff
One of the things I love about the Christmas season is egg nog. I could easily drink a quart of the stuff in one night and certainly, if I exercised no self restraint, could easily polish off a gallon in a week. I shouldn’t but man is egg nog tasty. Mostly. See, every year I forget which egg nogs I like and which I don’t and every year I wind up with a span of not so pleasant nog drinking. Heck, I can’t even remember from nog shopping trip to nog shopping trip so sometimes I go without rather than buy the nasty stuff. Egg nog is kinda expensive.
This year I decided to buy a bunch of different brands of nog right off the bat and have a nogoff (with and without booz). I picked up some Dean’s Farm, Guernsey Farm Dairy , C.E. Berger, and Horizon (although the Horizon came a bit later in the experiment). All these are pretty local brands and what one might call the usual fair. I purchased full blown fat on egg nog for this because who wants skinny nog? No one, that’s who (save the Horizon because it only came in skinny. Organic do-goody bastards).
By far the best of the lot was Dean’s Farms. It’s pleasantly spiced with the nutmeg and cinnamon and all those delicious spices and it has a proper weight to it. It was eggy and creamy and good with and without booze (rum and brandy were the liquors of choice. We may have had a couple nights of testing). I had gotten a Dean’s light nog quite a while back and I remember that it too was delicious except for an odd “diet pop” sort of taste. I should have looked at the ingredients to see if there was any artificial sweetener but it didn’t occur to me until right now. The point is that my Dean’s Farm drinking experience started out with lowfat nog and was decently pleasant so I had high hopes for the full on nog. I was not disappointed.
We moved on to the Guernsey nog next. I had also gotten a container of Guernsey earlier in the nog season and the one thing that stuck with me (heh) was that Guernsey nog was more the consistency of warm pudding than heavy whipping cream. I do believe you can actually spoon out Guernsey nog and not have to worry about drips or spillage because that stuff is dense. My first carton of Guernsey nog lasted quite a bit longer than normal because i discovered that I could cut the nog with milk and it was still delicious. In comparison to Dean’s Farms, we found Guernsey to be noticeably blander but once you spice up your glass with a shake or two of nutmeg and a hit of cinnamon, Guernsey is tops.
I’m not sure where to go next because Horizon wasn’t part of the original tasting and is low fat but C.E. Berger was by far the nastiest nog I’ve tasted short of the Jack Daniels infused nog I picked up to try a few years ago. Yuck. In order of tasting, C.E. Berger was next and despite a decent thickness and a decent spicing, we all thought it tasted sour and tart. By the sell by date it was still fresh and it did not smell like it had gone bad but whatever they used to make it old fashioned-y really turned all four nog tasters off. In fact, I do not believe anyone finished their C.E. Berger glass that night and I just poured the rest of the lot down the drain without having any more. C.E. Berger was an expensive nog mistake.
If I could have gotten Horizon in fat nog I’m betting it would have given Dean’s Farms a run for the money. The spice and eggyness was all there and despite the low fat taste it was a really decent nog. Seeings as the Dean’s Farms light nog did the same thing, I’m really keen to get ahold of some Horizon fat nog and try that out.
To Cap: Dean’s Farm nog is the best out of the carton although Horizon might also be up there. Guernsey needs some spice help but you can cut it with milk and it’s still right fine (and lasts longer that way). Avoid C.E. Berger old fashioned nog like the plague. There isn’t enough booze to make that a happy experience.
2009: Eggplant are also the texture of foam rubber which is both fun and disturbing.
2008: Did you know binkies have a right way up and a wrong way up?
2007: JSFR: Meltykiss (framboise)
2006: I do feel pretty bad-ass with my 1337 new scanner & PDFing skills. Ph33r M3!
2005: While string beans may be very tasty, and indeed they are, and candy cane chocolate chip cookie doodads may also be very tasty, and THEY are, mixing the two is pretty vile. I’m just sayin.
2004: Of course I was way too lazy to make it last night so instead I measured out all the ingredients, mixed what I could and left it all out (save the eggs) to pick up first thing in the morning. Yup, I’m that lazy.
2003: “Hi, my name is boo and I can’t let unwrapped Christmas gifts lie.”
2002: I’m not used to seeing 2002 down here, guess I wont post back then.