Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Eggnog

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

Alex Schmidt is joined by author/podcaster Joel Stein ('Story Of The Week' podcast) for a look at why eggnog is secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode. See NordPass Business in action now with a 3-month free trial here nordpass.com/sifpod with code SIFPOD.

Eggnog. Known for being Christmassy. Famous for being noggy. Nobody thinks much about it so let's have some fun. Let's find out why Eggnog is secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode, a podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. Being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. I am celebrating the holidays today with my wonderful guest, Joel Stein, who has been on this show before on an episode about wooden blocks. He's also a wonderful comedy writer and bestselling author. His latest book is called In Defense of Elitism, Why I'm Better Than You, and You Are Better Than Someone Who Didn't Buy This Book. Right? It's fun. It's called In Defense of Elitism, why I'm better than you, and you are better than someone who didn't buy this book.

Right? It's fun. It's called In Defense of Elitism. It is both very funny and very insightful about everything in the country and world, especially the last couple years. And speaking of humor, speaking of insight, speaking of amazing stuff, Joel has a new podcast out. It is called Story of the Week, and I asked him to pitch it to you, which you will in the show. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Canarsie and Lenape peoples. Acknowledge Joel recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Ortongva and Keech and Chumash peoples, and acknowledge that in all of our locations, native people are very much still here.

That feels worth doing on each episode, and today's episode is about eggnog. You know, the beverage. And that's a patron-suggested topic, many thanks to J.R. Carson for that idea, that's a patron suggested topic. Many thanks to J.R. Carson for that idea. Also to Shane and to Jonathan Smookler and to other folks for supporting it in the threads at SifPod.fun. I'm doing something special this month with the patron votes for topics because every month patrons pick three episode topics. This December, this month, as like an extra special maximizing the awesomeness of being a supporter of the show thing, I decided to double the amount of patron picks. So I'm making the top six things people picked in December. Eggnog is the first of many of those. I find it wonderful as a holiday thing, international thing. And, you know, it can be an alcoholic drink, but also when you buy the carton at the store, it does not have alcohol in it yet. So we're taking a very historical, very international approach to this beverage, and I hope you enjoy it whether or not you partake in alcohol. And of course, kids, don't. You're not allowed and you shouldn't. That's all the setup you could need, so please sit back or continue acting in a Hallmark Christmas

movie. I have not really seen any of those, but I assume Agnog just flows like water in that stuff, right? Get all the Christmas stuff in there. Either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Joel Stein. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Joel Stein, it is so nice to have you back on the show. And I always start by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of the topic. So how do you feel about eggnog? I like eggnog. I'm a Jew. Let's just start there.

So this was not something i was introduced to at a young age and um i although i don't know if that's an excuse because i'm familiar with christmas trees like i don't know why i wouldn't i wouldn't familiar with eggnog my wife is a big eggnog fan oh cool and i think the first time i ever had it was at a jewish couple's holiday party andy andy barwitz i'm to name drop right at the beginning. It was the first time I ever had eggnog, now that I'm thinking about it. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. And I liked it. It's exactly this thing where I feel like eggnog is somehow Christian, even though it's one of the most detached from all elements of the faith Christian things. I believe, and again, not a Christian, there was a fourth wise man who brought eggnog. Right. So I think it's very tied to the faith.

Yeah. Like Christ's uncle or something. Like, hey, here you go. By the way, how much better would that have been than frankincense? They would have been so much happier with eggnog. Although things did smell back then really badly in general in the past. Yeah. So I'm sure you needed more incense in general.

Yeah, that's true. Very helpful. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I grew up mostly Catholic. My mom's Presbyterian, but, but general Christian. Oh, thanks. We're doing okay.

And, and I, as a kid, I, like I saw people drinking eggnog at our family party, but it was not really introduced to me as a child. Because it was spiked, right? I think it wasn't just the alcohol. The alcohol is one element, but also I think they figured this is also kind of an intense beverage, even if you haven't put anything in it yet. It's a little weird for kids, I think. It is. like it's a little weird for kids i think it is i to prepare for this bought some eggnog from the store and like taste tested it yesterday because i hadn't really had it as an adult and like i i drank it and my partner was immediately like you look upset and i was like this is because it it

tasted to me it's like melted ice cream or something. Like, it's pretty strange that it is a beverage. And then I also tried it with rum in it, and it was much better, mostly because I think the rum just made it more liquid. Like, alcohol's cool, but it made it, just the consistency, a lot more normal to me. And probably cut down the sweetness a little bit. Yeah, that too. Yeah. The other thing I taste tested is, you know, like the silk company that makes soy milk. I tried their stuff, which is just called nog because there's no eggs in it. And that was much smoother, much lighter. Like

it just tasted like soy milk with nutmeg in it, which is good. That's good. Which is what you're in for. That's why you want nog. It's a nutmeg. Yeah. Nutmeg is awesome. Yeah. Nutmeg is awesome. I use it in spinach when I cook spinach. Oh, that sounds so good. Nutmeg and cinnamon, I think, are the best smells in the world. And all those, the holidays are such a good time for spices like that. Like all the holiday spices are wonderful. And so I feel like you don't need a cup of milk and old eggs on top of them. You can just enjoy the spices and not drink this stuff. Wow. So you're coming into this surprisingly negative. I think of you as a very, you're excited about everything, but you're anti-nog. I didn't see this coming at all.

This was really thrilling to research and I'm really glad I know what's going on, but I, yeah, I really would rather have just dessert or just alcohol. I did not find eggnog to be like a better combination, you know? Well, I liked eggnog and my wife buys it almost every year, like a quart of it. But I don't drink it simply because I love desserts. And if I'm going to choose to have an enormous amount of calories from something, it's not going to be eggnog. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. If you told me it was good for me i'd be in but it is not it's like the protein of the eggs and the calcium of the milk combined to make you invincible eggnog

that's a better ad than whatever they've got going on right now yeah yeah and i and patrons pick this topic. I'm glad they did. Cause I, I am like excited to know more about it now. A whole rabbit hole. That's very fun to dive into. By the way, let's remember to tell people about your podcast story of the week, which is a new rabbit hole every time and really fun. Yeah. So basically we take a long, complicated story from a magazine like the New Yorker or The Atlantic or much more obscure ones often, and we get the writer on to tell us that story. So I have a conversation with someone and they tell me the story that they've written in print. So the idea was like, when I

first moved to New York in the 90s, I'd go to these parties and someone would walk up to me and they would start a conversation by saying, did you read this story in The New Yorker? And I would say yes, even though I had not. And then they would proceed to tell me the whole story, even though I claim to have just read it. So we have the better version, which is instead of the boring person at the party, we have the person who actually reported and wrote this story and spent six months of their life on these long stories. And they tell me the story. and then i interrupt with dumb jokes just like i have been here that's great that's what i seek and yeah i i also like that almost as a improv comedy game or something like pretend to know the feature contents sounds great uh oh and we've got your neighbor

jonathan colton wrote uh i think might be the best podcast theme song ever. It's very smooth in a good way. It's very catchy. I love it. Great. And today we're going to dive into eggnog. And I got to read features all about it and so on. But our first fascinating thing about it is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics that I think especially clarify what it is. That's in a segment called...

Sometimes in our lives, we all have stats. We all have numbers. But if we are wise, we know that there's always SIF podcast. Mean with me. When you need stats, I'll calculate. I'll help you carry the one for. It won't be long till I'm gonna need some numbers to count up. Now, if I were Simon Cowell, at this point, my first note would be, why isn't that song longer? That's a very sweet Simon. Wow.

I didn't know the names of the other people on that show, or otherwise I would have picked one. Paul Abdul? Is that right? Yeah. Randy Jackson. There we go. Randy Jackson. Were you in the chorus at your church or something? You had a very lovely voice there. Funny for a vaguely Christian topic, not a church, but high school. Yeah, I was in secular chorus a lot. Oh, okay. And I was in Madrigals, which I guess is kind of close to this. Madrigals is like the Ren Faire kind of singing, you know, at Christmas.

Oh, I know. I worked on staff on a show called American Princess about a Jewish American princess who worked at a Renaissance Faire. So we did a lot of Renaissance Faire research. So yeah, you know the scene, the Madrigal scene. Yeah. All right. Eggnog stacks. Are you going to tell us what eggnog is made of?

Because I have guesses, but I'm curious. I am. Yeah. That's the first number. And real quick, that name was submitted by at Arios99 on Twitter. Thank you very much, Arios, especially for getting a Twitter use in under the wire. And we have a new name for this segment every week. Please make them as silly and wacky as possible.

Submit to SifPod on Twitter or to Siftpod at gmail.com that's more stable but first number here is five because five is the number of key non-alcoholic ingredients in most eggnog recipes okay can i take a guess or is that yeah go for it yeah yeah okay i mean it would be a trick if there weren't but but I'm pretty sure there's egg, right? Eggs, yeah, that's right. Okay. There's cream, like heavy cream. Yeah, that's right.

As discussed, there's nutmeg. Does that count as an ingredient? Yeah, and I lumped all the other spices in with nutmeg as well. Okay, spices would be number three. Sugar, of course, is number four. Sugar, yeah. Now we need a fifth ingredient? This is surprising.

Oh, would vanilla count? Or no, that's a spice you you basically got it because like i'm treating cream and milk as separate ingredients but it's like a lot of times it's made with like a really heavy whipping cream or heavy cream and then regular milk too half and half as they say exactly yeah yeah so those are the parts other than liquor yeah that. That's raw egg, obviously. Yeah. I'll link various recipes, but a lot of people just mix these things together raw and there you go. That's it.

And excellent guessing of the elements because, yeah, that's it. Eggs, milk and cream, sugar, and spices, primarily nutmeg. And then many adult cooks will add liquor either while making it or just later. It works either way. Yeah. And we say liquor. Do we mean rum or do we mean whiskey? Either, yeah.

People use all sorts. I feel like rum is with a vanilla kind of sweet beverage. No, with a vanilla, I would go rum. Let me tell you, I taste tested with rum and then taste tested with whiskey, those separate glasses rum was way better yeah you're correct i'm right ah you're just yeah i feel good it's like i won yeah yeah and yeah and so that's the basic elements like it's sort of just the ingredients of ice cream and then also liquor and but it's a beverage wait you're right it's like it's it is melted ice cream yeah it's it's more or less what's going on uh and what the children would call soup yeah

they're making soup yeah oh interesting and and as far as the amounts of stuff the next number here is an fda requirement food and drug administration in the u. What? It is 1% egg yolk salads. What? That's the number. At least 1% of the composition of something to be labeled eggnog in U.S. stores, it has to be at least 1% egg yolk salads. That is some clearly egg industry shenanigans in the lobbying. For sure, right?

Almost definitely. Yeah. Yeah, the source here is Patrick DiGiusto, who was a Wired magazine food writer and columnist. And he says that the FDA takes a strong interest in egg stuff and a strong interest in dairy stuff. So eggnog is both. They've put a bunch of rules around what you can label eggnog in a store. It needs to be at least 6% milk fat and at least 1% egg yolk salads. Otherwise, a store has to call it something else.

Imitation eggnog or something. Eggnog food. That one from the silk company is just called nog because the government would stop them from putting the word egg on it. They would step in. It's like the Champagne Bureau. Someone who has a lot of rules about protecting their industry. I guess. I don't know.

I don't have strong feelings on this. I have a stereotype in my head of a French person who generates champagne. And I really want that person to be an eggnog maker. Like that fancy. And that, like, a feat. And then they make eggnog. to be an eggnog maker like that fancy like a feat and then they make eggnog you call you call this eggnog this is not eggnog yeah and there's just one other number here for the takeaways the number is four is that the number of people who actually drink eggnog that my other thought about eggnog is i haven't been offered it at a party lately but i

think now i would have a little at a party just for for kicks but i'm not gonna buy another quart of it like forget it it's exceedingly unpopular like i don't think um yeah i don't think you can even buy buy like a uh an edible gummy eggnog flavored. I think that it just, as a flavor, doesn't exist anywhere. No one's interested. Wait, did McDonald's used to make an eggnog milkshake? I don't know. I may have made that up.

Okay. I ran into a story from 2014 that I guess Starbucks tried to discontinue an eggnog latte in 2014. They'd been doing it for a few decades. And then when they tried to discontinue it, peopleog latte in 2014. They'd been doing it for a few decades. And then when they tried to discontinue it, people tweeted and wrote letters and freaked out. And then they brought it back. People don't like change. That too, yeah.

But they also don't like eggnog. So it could have gone either way. I guess that's most traditions, right? Like whether they're good or not. Keep it. I'm willing to go for it. It might be great. Yeah. Yeah.

And this last number here, four, we were talking about alcohol before. And four is the number of different types of alcohol in the personal eggnog recipe of George Washington. Oh, so eggnog's pretty old. Okay. It turns out, yeah. Everyone thinks recipes pretty old. Okay. It turns out, yeah. Foods, everyone thinks recipes are old. Like, you think about, like, I don't know, you know, any Italian classic, like a Parmesan or whatever. You think they're really old, and nothing's very old.

People used to eat much more plainly. So I'm surprised eggnog is even that old. It is, and we're about to dive into the history. But as a way in, first president George Washington, according to Smithsonian Magazine, he had like a favorite eggnog recipe, which included rum and whiskey and brandy and sherry. Rum, whiskey, brandy. That makes sense. Sherry. Sherry is such a range.

It goes from so, I don't know what kind of sherry he's talking about. But interesting. Interesting. Not a heavy man. He's a fit guy. So I'm sure he didn't have that much of it. I think the past just loved alcohol even more than we do. Like 1700s, 1800s America.

It was just in everything. 1900s. 1900s yeah yeah factories but you know used to have the elevenses which was a break in the middle of the day i think where you went to drink oh perfect like at 11 a.m 11 a.m yeah oh my god i think half of the temperance movement was just like we can't have drunk husbands coming home. It's just too scary and violent. Yeah. And like Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan, they have an old temperance fountain where they just built a water fountain to try to get people to drink less alcohol. Like there was a movement to say, please drink any other liquid, please.

Even water. Yeah. If it comes to that. Right. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of alcohol back then. Yeah. If it comes to that. Right. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of alcohol back then.

Yeah. And it brings us into one of the main takeaways for the episode. Here we go into takeaway number one. Eggnog is the North American colonizer version of a British drink called posset. What? Which combined eggs and dairy with beer. What? How do you, P-O-S-S-E-T?

Yeah, exactly right. Yeah. One T. What? Egg? Wait, do it again? Eggs and beer and what? Yeah, so broadly, the recipe's pretty similar,

but instead of liquor, the alcohol base was beer. And also there would be a lot more beer because there's less alcohol in that. And it's British, not German? Yeah, British. I know. Interesting. Interesting. That doesn't sound, that sounds way worse.

It does. Yeah. I didn't, I looked for an opportunity to try it and could not find one, but I think I know where to go. Of course you have an opportunity. You have a carton of eggnog and you have a beer. You just combine them. What do you mean?

Oh, that's true. I guess I chickened out. Yeah. You really did. Yeah. I forgot. I could just do that. Is it still in your fridge?

Yeah. Maybe I'll do it later, tape it or something. Yeah. Yeah. I want to know. Definitely. You should. Everyone wants to know now.

Yeah. Because this drink, we have recipes for it still. And this is really the whole history of eggnog because it's an evolution in North America of this British drink, posset. But where does that come from? Like, why are people doing that? Is that a breakfast food? I don't know. All we know is it's a rich person food

oh especially because like fresh milk and and also just having extra eggs that was more of a wealthy person thing in in old britain than you know if you have disposable eggs you're probably pretty well off i for different reasons just last night was reading reading 17th century British recipes, which are phenomenal to read because recipes, it's very, very recently that recipes are written in this very scientific way with ingredients and steps. Like it used to be more just a pair. It was just a paragraph, even a scoffy. It's just like a paragraph of generally do this. And they tell like, it's almost like a story, but you know, recipes from pre colonization are really interesting because like all those foods that come from the Americas, they don't have like they don't have tomatoes or corn or grains or, you know, it's like they're really limited. And it's just interesting to see

what was considered a normal way to cook, which half the time sounds pretty gross. I laughed out loud reading a recipe last night because it was for some kind of oatmeal. And it was like, yeah, you boil some water, put some oatmeal in it, add blood, either fish or fowl. I was like, add blood? People were just desperate for any nutrition they could get from anywhere. Right. In the past, it was like, what are the main liquids we have? Obviously not water. It's alcohol, blood. Terrible.

Yeah. Yeah. Past is a foreign country. And you have one of the main sources here is Smithsonian Magazine, because they say that eggnog is a, you know, it's a common holiday drink in the U.S. today. And it turns out that's because, like, the colonial U.S. really developed eggnog, like, before independence from Britain. That's when they really came up with it. And they partly did because they had a relatively high amount of dairy production and egg production versus Europe at that time. and egg production versus Europe at that time. And then also, tragically, because of the triangle trade of sugar and enslaving people, they also had a lot of rum. So since they had dairy and eggs and rum, they were like, boom, eggnog. Interesting.

I'm just thinking about, yeah, people didn't have as much milk. Like there's that song from Fiddler on the Roof that this is the land of milk and honey, which is just a phrase, right? But those were two things that are probably very hard to get. Yeah. Yeah. And so it wasn't, was it a holiday drink in the U.S. or they were just noggin all the time? And they were mainly doing it at the holidays.

Yeah. So it's also like, like, like you said, like this is a surprisingly old recipe and way of having it. Like the way, the way we have it today is pretty similar to the mid-1700s in the 13 colonies. It's time to disrupt the eggnog industry. Yeah. And I just throw to an ad for silk nog. Like, that's right. I've been promoting it this whole time.

But yeah, so they, in terms of coming up with eggnog, the other thing that invented it is that they sort of changed, updated an older European drink called posset. And in particular in Britain and the upper classes, they had the milk, they had the eggs, and then they would mainly use beer as a base, sometimes wine as a base, which you would think would also be totally different. They had less access to liquor such as rum than they had in the colonies. And so it came from brewing was more of the base of it. Huh. Brandy. Brandy makes sense the more I think about it. That might be even better than rum.

Brandy could work, yeah. Like a Brandy Alexander is cream and brandy, right? And some cinnamon. It's pretty close. I feel obligated to know because Alexander is in the name. Sure, yeah. I speak for all of us.

I believe there was a short period of time when Keith Moon and Ringo Starr would go out to bars and get wasted on brandy Alexanders, which is like getting wasted on 5,000 calories. Right. It's an all-seasons eggnog. Yeah, basically.

It really is. Yeah. And I'm also, with this pasta, I'm excited to link a modern recipe. And it's from a restaurant in my area. It's called Olmsted. It's here in Brooklyn. It's named after Frederick Law Olmsted. Oh, geez.

This is too Brooklyn. It's a little Brooklyn that they're doing it. But they say that they particularly like to use heavy beers for it like their recipe uses porter and uses india pale ale and then it's a two to one ratio of beer to cream so for every one bit of cream there's two bits of beer and it's it's i'm sure a very beer heavy drink i'd love to try it it does seem seem like with a Guinness or something, a porter, or a stout, it seems doable. It's coffee, creamy, yeah. And then another thing here is posset is also one potential origin of the name eggnog. Because, you know, we get the egg part from eggs.

But the nog part, according to food historian Nana Roganvaldardottir, it's an Icelandic name I've never said it before. Nana Roganvaldardottir. She says that nog, that word, is an obscure older English word for strong beer. So we're also even getting this name egg nog from this old drink that was beer based. Oh. And then another element is that apparently you know english is silly and so the word nog also used to refer to a type of wooden cup and people would serve posset in these wooden cups so it's it's all kind of converging on one

origin but a few ways i don't like these this woke politics you're throwing at me that English is silly. I'm trying to destroy our country and other people's countries. It's like, I don't speak English. I speak American. Ah, now. Yeah, that's better. And then every rural state starts clapping like, yes, good, good, good. But yeah, so the name comes from this old drink and the recipe kind of comes from it because the main modification is liquor instead of the beer. But, you know, before that, there's centuries of records of fancy English people drinking this. Atlas Obscura says that in 1620, the future King Charles I of England caught a cold and his doctors prescribed posset as part of the treatment. Like there's a record of them saying, this will make you feel better, drink posset.

Would that improve one of your humors or what would that do? I don't know why they thought it would help. I feel like it's from that time when they thought whiskey is powerfully medical all sorts of ways, you know? Like, they would send it with the dogs to rescue skiers and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, even reading last night these 17th century British recipes, it was surprising how, like almost every culture, they were talking about foods as medicines.

So, you'd read some recipe and they would tell you their ingredients I'd never thought of using or heard of. But they would be there partly for flavor, but partly because they told you it was medicinal. And people could just say that stuff. They were like, I decided this is medicine. People were like, he's very confident. Yeah, well, it's hard to tell, right? Like some of them turned out to be medicine. Some of them turned out to be aspirin.

But yeah, it was probably very, you didn't have the kind of studies that they would later have or a scientific method. So you're just like, it worked for one guy. We should all try it. Yeah. And I think a lot of people were drinking it too, because the other big old record we have of Passett is the plays of William Shakespeare. Okay, you got to tell me about this guy. So he... You're just throwing names out now. Yeah, it's a surprisingly cool name, I feel like. It's like Lance Armstrong. Like, come on, that's a character name.

It's too cool. But early in the play, Macbeth, there's a part where Lady Macbeth is plotting for her and her husband to kill King Duncan, and she uses possets with a knockout drug put in them to incapacitate King Duncan's guards so Macbeth can sneak in and kill them. I remember that part, not because I'm a great Shakespeare scholar, but just because I watched the Joel Cohen Macbeth last year. And yeah, I don't know if he kept the possets, but, uh, that's in,

in the text of it. They must've. Cause that scene happens. I probably just heard the word and ignored it. Cause I didn't know what they were talking about. Like most of Shakespeare for me. It all. Yeah.

It all kind of swoops by. Yeah. And yeah. Cause there's, uh, apparently also a posset gets offered to the character Falstaff and Mary wives of Windsor. And then posset gets used as a metaphor in Hamlet when the

ghost father Hamlet is describing Claudius's poison interacting with his blood. He describes it as acting like a posset curdling his blood. Wait, but you're making posset sound like poison in all these cases. Yeah, Shakespeare, I think the Falstaff use was positive, but yeah, otherwise he keeps using it for like Mickeys and deadly metaphors and stuff. Yeah. Oh, is that because posset was so common that is it something you could just throw poison into? Because people were just drinking it all the time?

I think it makes sense as like something to put a poison in choice. Because like there's so many ingredients and the eggs kind of cover up a lot. Yeah. I guess it would work for that. Well, this is news you can use for the listener. Right. If you're looking to poison someone, eggnog is your beverage of choice. A lot of the audience is grasping nobles.

That's a lot of the people here in the show. These podcasts get so specific nowadays. Okay, grasping nobles, good to know. I wish you'd get so specific nowadays. Okay, Grasping Noble, it's good to know. I wish you'd told me up top. Okay. All right, off of that, we're going to a short break, followed by the big takeaways. See you in a sec. Speaking of drinks similar to eggnog, we've got a whole nother takeaway here about the rest of the world.

Takeaway. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places. Yes, I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney,

is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience. One you have no choice but to embrace because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in Number two. There's a huge range of international drinks comparable to eggnog. You're saying there's egg-based beverages all around the world?

Huh. Yeah. I've never encountered any of you. No, they were all new to me, reading about them. Okay. And I think it's partly because, you know, like because eggnog only developed a few hundred years ago. It's both very old, but also other places had parallel invention or other European derivations of, hey, let's put eggs and dairy and booze together into something tasty. Did any of them sound appealing to you? Did any of them sound appealing to you?

This first one especially, yeah. And it's nearby to us. The main source here is gastro-obscura. They talk about a Mexican drink. And the drink is called rompope. And rompope was created in the 1600s by Catholic nuns. It's a drink that uses cooked egg yolks and no egg whites. So it's kind of a yellowish color. And then the other

ingredients are milk, spices, sugar, and rum. And it's often thickened with chocolate or with ground up nuts. And I think that all sounds kind of better than eggnog to me, like a nut component and maybe do the eggs a little differently, cook them more. That sounds great. It's getting closer to food, which I think is what we both crave from this. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. In my ruminations about whether milk and cinnamon go along well together, one of the first things I thought of was horchata, which does not involve dairy, which is a rice milk drink with cinnamon. And I kind of use that as a data point to think that there aren't many ice creams that are cinnamon flavored. You never have cinnamon creme brulee. I think there's something

that don't mix about those two things. And yeah, I hadn't thought of horchata, but that's dead on. And now I'm also thinking of churros, especially cinnamon churros. I think Mexico has a great appreciation of this flavor and they're doing it really well. But again, not a dairy thing. You dip your churro in just chocolate. You wouldn't dip your churros i think mexico has a great appreciation of this flavor and they're doing it really well yeah but again not a dairy thing you dip your churro in just chocolate you wouldn't dip your churro you know i'm just i'm i'm wondering if the reason you like the silk eggnog was because there's no dairy i think this may be honestly the disruptor call like i'm gonna buy some if i it was really great everyone Everyone should get it. I will probably want it all year. The one Simpsons joke about Agnog is that Homer Simpson believes the government takes it away after 30 days every year.

I'm going to feel that way about Silk Nog. I'm going to be like, where did it go? What happened? I bet you don't need to refrigerate that. I bet you could stock up. It's a very tempting idea. I'm just going to do it. And then that's Rum Pope. And Gastro Obscurus says it's most popular at Christmas, but available at other times of year, too. So you apparently don't have this problem where it goes away, like Homer says.

I think it's just an editor making the writer hedge their bets. Like, can you prove you can't get it the rest of the year? And he just threw that phrase in. Entirely possible, yeah. I think you'd be hard pressed to get that outside of Christmas. So yeah, get it now, folks. That's a good call. And another holiday time drink in North America is in Puerto Rico. And they have a drink called Coquito. And the focus is on sweetness and also on coconut flavor.

So this is a drink where they either use cream of coconut or coconut extract and combine that with condensed milk or evaporated milk or another really sweet milk. And it's that plus sugar, spices, and rum. You get like an eggnog-ish drink that way. I've been messing with condensed milk at home because I was making like Thai iced tea. And I also was putting it into coffees, like espresso drinks. It's powerful stuff. Yeah. And I think the main other difference is a lack of eggs, if I was reading the recipe right.

So they're getting a thickness from like the coconut and this really condensed milk. Yeah. Which is cool. Yeah. Yeah. And then zooming all over the rest of the world, next one here is Japan. They have a drink called tamago sake in Japan. And that is a heated blend of raw egg sugar or honey and sake oh that

makes sense yeah i like that yeah raw egg something sweet like sugar honey and sake that's it great but there's no cinnamon and there's no milk it's just that makes sense and also apparently it started out as a like japanese cold remedy and then Westerners who visited said, this is a cocktail now. And they were like, I guess, if you want to. So that's sort of the progression of use of tamago sake. Well, eggs in cocktails is very common, right? I don't make cocktails a lot, but they're usually very rich and very sweet. But when you shake an egg, a raw egg, it becomes a little bomb. And if it foams up, and you have to be kind of careful when you open up the shaker.

But that's a common ingredient in a cocktail. Yeah, especially a type called a flip. A flip, that's right. Yeah, there's so many of these different drinks because I think the whole world figured out the utility of a couple of these ingredients. They were like, this is just great. And then everybody's been enjoying it. It's very, we're all one world. I like it.

It's good. And when you make an eggnog, you shake it like that? I mean, I know we kept buying them in cartons, but I picture it in a big punch bowl, but is it shaken? The recipes I've seen, it's a lot of mixing, like a giant bowl. Yeah. I don't like that. I don't like that. So yeah, it's less of a mixologist vibe. Yeah. Disrupt it. I guess we are, because the next one here, this sounds pretty fun. It's a drink from Chile. And in Chile, they make a drink called Cola de Mono, which translates to monkey's tail.

And Cola de Mono is milk, sugar, spices, coffee, and then a South American spirit called Pisco. Oh, yeah. I have Pisco in this house. That is not an egg drink. Yeah. Again, no egg. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and also no like heavy cream. It seems like it'd be a very light tasting drink. Yeah. And it's a coffee thing. Yeah. That sounds, sounds lovely. Yeah. And then next one here, this is, I would say heavier sounding. It's Italian. Uh, this is an Italian drink called Il Bombardino, which means the bomb. It is started

out as a drink for skiers in the Italian Alps. Like it's definitely a winter thing. It's a mixture of whiskey and milk and then a kind of egg custard. And it's a specific kind of custard that contains sweet wine. So it sounds almost like a weird dessert to me, but it's a drink. Yeah. Yeah. I can't even picture that. And then another European one here is from the Netherlands. It's a drink called Advocat. Advocat is the name. And this got invented by Dutch people who visited Brazil in colonial times. And the Dutch discovered avocados there. They were like, oh, wow, avocados there they were like oh wow avocados what an amazing fruit uh and so then they engineered a version of eggnog where you use avocados instead

of eggs that's interesting it they're both so fatty that i could see what they give they give the same richness um yeah and and apparently the other thing is like today over the over centuries since then dutch cooks have like gone back to eggs instead of avocados but it's still named advocat because of that history and then the drink they make is so thick especially with egg yolks that you eat it with a spoon like it's a it's a solid dessert that gets eaten like a custard. All right, this is just a dessert now. We're not even talking about drinks anymore. Yeah, they've really had a progression on the Netherlands there.

They're really going for it. I think they wound up at the spot that you want them to wind up with, with eggnog. You just want your eggnog turned into ice cream, which just seems like kind of what they did. You want to eat your eggnog, right? Yeah, I just really like ice cream. And I don't like eggnog turned into ice cream, which just seems like kind of what they did. You want to eat your eggnog, right? Yeah. I just really like ice cream and I don't like eggnog more. So yeah. Right. If it was a creme brulee or an ice cream or even an eggnog flavored cake or something, I think you'd be in. I just need one country to come through. Just one. Somebody. It seems like the Netherlands, right? i think they did it yeah yeah uh and there's brandy

in it too brandy is the main alcohol and brandy's great so i'm into it yeah yeah the more we're talking about eggnog itself i think i would go brandy over rum next time the more i think about it that i i have so many things to do after we tape. Yeah. I love the end of this episode where it's just drunken Alex just drinking different things with his eggnog, with his silk eggnog. I don't know, maybe Everclear. Yeah. That was my Barney from The Simpsons. It wasn't very good. I was going to claim that was me talking after I went away for a while.

There's one more international example here, and this comes from the Canadian military. So specifically the military in Canada, they developed a drink called moose milk, which is almost a stereotype name if you're coming up with a Canadian drink. I'm offended. Thank you. type name if you're coming up with a canadian drink but i'm offended uh thank you and uh gastropsy says in world war ii canadian military units started making it as a batch cocktail and it's debated whether the canadian army or navy or air force invented it first like they all argue about it but either way it's liquor, cream, eggs, sugar, and coffee beaten together. It's a very coffee-centric eggnog type drink.

I like a coffee with an alcohol, but I'm a nervous guy, and it just sounds to me like a speedball. Why are we putting an upper with a downer? It just seems like a dangerous idea. But I think I'm overreacting. Yeah, it's in the Four Loko family of beverages. I think so. I don't love that, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that whole Red Bull vodka thing made me nervous back in the day. I was like, I don't think that's a good idea, guys. I'm the same. That's not... I guess I really like my things separate. Like my dessert and my caffeine and my alcohol can all be in their own houses. Yeah. That's cool.

Yeah. We're reasonable people. We're not out there trying you know going crazy yeah they're like the other thing with moose milk is apparently sometimes either as a substitute for the eggs and sugar or in addition they use vanilla ice cream like they actually just go get some ice cream and put that in it. At some point, we're at a milkshake, right? At that point. That's the point. You're at a milkshake.

And also, apparently, if you're in Canada around New Year's, you can go to some Royal Canadian Legion halls. Like a Veterans Legion hall, but in Canada. And they hold New Year's celebrations where they serve moose milk to the public. It's an event. Which sounds great. Really good. I love that country. public. Like it's an event. Oh. Which sounds great. I love it. I love that country. Yeah.

Yeah. Good for Canada. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a, for the main episode here, there's one more takeaway and it keeps us in military stuff. Takeaway number three. There was an 1800s eggnog riots at the U.S. Army's West Point Military Academy.

What year is this? This is 1826. The cadets at West Point threw a riot involving eggnog and alcohol. This is not long before Grant and Lee are attending that university. Very good thinking. So Robert E. Lee was there. Yeah. Oh, he was there.

He was a cadet. He did not participate in the riot. Yeah. Oh, that's where he drew the line. Like, he's going to revolt against the country in order to save slavery. But no, he won't get involved in the eggnog fight. Yeah. It's a weird, weird sense of morals.

Okay, but wasn't Lee there at the same time as Grant, or they were not exactly there at the same time? I'll Google it fast, because Grant's not in the story. Yeah. It looks like Grant was a lot younger. Yeah. He was a lot younger. Okay. Grant was there in the late 1830s.

I wonder if you could map where you fell on the eggnog riot to which side you fought for during the Civil War. So, funny enough, there's two famous people in this story. One is Robert E. Lee, who was not a participant in the riot. And the other person who was one of the few people who instigated the whole thing is Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. I'm not surprised. They were very on the same side of the Civil War, but not the eggnog riot. Yeah. Well, one was more of a hothead, right?

I mean, that's why the North tried to get Lee. They knew he was a smart, logical tactician, whereas Jefferson Davis is a madman. So, okay, what did that guy do this time? Jesus, history's riddled with damage this man has caused. What if Abe Lincoln at the start of the war had a list of eggnog riot people and he was like, okay, we want them. We don't want them. We want Lee. We don't want Davis.

Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. So what did Davis do? Jesus. I like this one bit the the short version with davis is it seems like he was a huge drunk at this time this this eggnog riot is christmas 1826 and and that fall august of 1826 jefferson davis snuck off the campus at west point to a tavern, got really drunk. And then while he was trying to sneak back into campus, he slipped and fell, tumbled 60 feet down a ravine and almost died. Like that was standard Jefferson Davis at this time, Seth. Imagine if he had.

Yeah, it could. That's like if you're writing alternate history books and you think Davis had a key role in how it went, you could like put your book there. Yeah. Okay. So how does the riot happen? It sounds like just a drunk dude. Yeah.

And it turns out, especially in the very early history of West Point, drinking was a big thing. And the key source here, it's PeaceForHistory.com by Christopher Klein. He says that West Point started in 1802. And for folks who don't know, that's the military academy for the U.S. Army. It's the site of a former Revolutionary War fort on the Hudson River in New York State. Not far from New York City at all. Yeah, I was looking. I could drive there in less than two hours if I wanted to go.

Oh, it's not far. But that's with all the city traffic. So it's not very far. It's pretty, too. Really pretty. Yeah, really good. Oh, it's not far. But that's with all the city traffic, so it's not very far. It's pretty, too. Really pretty, yeah, really good. So they had a good place, but they, especially in the first years, they were like college guys. They all just drank really heavily.

And also, apparently, the Army was not that organized at the time. But especially after the War of 1812, they said, okay, let's actually get a military academy going and in 1817 they get a new superintendent of west point named sylvanus thayer and sylvanus thayer basically outlaws fun at west point he makes rules against playing cards against tobacco and against reading novels, among other rules. So very strict. And one of the few exceptions is he allows alcohol consumption two days a year.

He says the 4th of July and Christmas, you can drink. That's it. Oh, we know how that's going to go. Okay, this is the mistake, right? Yeah. And so, obviously, they heavily binge drink two days a year. I mean, this is the mistake right yeah and so yeah obviously they heavily binge drink two days a year i mean this is this is the purge right yeah basically but a bunch of like 20 year olds with military vibes they're all like okay just drink everything

for 24 hours like two days a year you can drink and read novels. Go! Crazy interpretations of Jane Eyre run around campus. Yeah. She's a Christ figure. And yeah, so Barney and the other cadets, they, apparently the policy like goes poorly every year, but especially 4th of July in 1825, the year before. 4th of July, 1825, the cadets party so hard that they pick up the commandant of the school on their shoulders and carry him across campus against his will, like all the way back to their barracks. And the article also says the cadets did something called a snake dance.

And I don't know what a snake dance is. Oh, boy. I think we do. I think we know exactly what it is. And I think we should not talk about it. Clean show, yeah. Clean show. And so from there, Thayer says, okay, never mind.

Alcohol is just banned. You can't have it. Yeah, that's right and so that that was after the fourth of july 1825 there's no alcohol christmas day 1825 but then the next year 1826 the cadets are like hey this fourth of july 1826 that's the 50th fourth of july right like this is the biggest fourthth of July ever. We have to party. And Thayer says, no, you're not allowed. And so then the cadets say, okay, we're going to plot our revenge privately, which is to throw the biggest Christmas party anybody's ever thrown.

Like, we're going to get wild at Christmas. We should be pitching this to Netflix. It's like a college comedy and also distinguished somehow. Totally. It's Animal House. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What happens is the cadets smuggle gallons of whiskey plus other liquor across the river. And then in the north barracks of West Point, a party starts in a room containing 13 cadets, including Jefferson Davis. And then from there, it proceeds to involve one third of the entire student body drinking heavily, breaking furniture, going wild. And then West Point leadership decides they can't punish everybody because if they do, it'll be big enough like United States news that maybe they shut down West Point. Like they can't they can't let anybody know it got this bad.

I'm still missing both the eggnog and the riots. Oh, yeah. Great question. And so it was like very traditional that eggnog would be a Christmas beverage. And so the cadets were told like no eggnog at all. And so the rioting, they're probably just drinking straight booze. But it's because eggnog with alcohol in it was withdrawn from them. That's the spark.

Oh, so the rule was specific. In addition to no alcohol, guys, don't even make eggnog, because I know you're going to put alcohol in it. Yeah, yeah. And it was like, especially in the past, pretty much always eggnog had alcohol in it. I think still. Yeah. And so they didn't riot so much as partied. Yeah. So and so that they didn't they didn't riot so much as partied.

Yeah. And like broke stuff and refused any attempts by the authorities and the faculty to stop it. Yeah. And, you know, the interesting part, of course, is everyone involved in this story is very well armed. But yet it never it never got to no one died right yeah no recorded deaths yeah so weird because almost any incident from back in that era had deaths just like right just just bathing like caused deaths so it's amazing that all these armed people angry and drunk there were no deaths Maybe they were all so pickled, you know? Like they were all just preserved by how much booze was in their bodies. So they were shot, but they were fine. Right.

I like that. Jefferson Davis. Jesus. Yeah. Any good stories about Jefferson Davis? Any what? Good stories about him? Good stories?

Like did he save someone from a burning building or anything? Ah, he's weird because he was in like both houses of Congress and a secretary of war. And eventually maybe a U.S. presidential candidate. But then he leads the Confederacy and is a traitor. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah.

And at this time, a huge drunk. Like we said, he almost fell in a ravine and died because he was so drunk months before this. And then West Point ends up doing about three months of court-martials involving hundreds of, you know, all the cadets. They interview 167 of them for testimony about the ones they end up punishing. They only sentenced 19 of them for expulsion, but this ends up being like kind of the peak of chaos at West Point. And from there, it becomes a more professional academy.

Yeah. And Robert E. Lee was a West Point cadet at the time, and he spoke in defense of several of his classmates. He, either just because he was in the other barracks or not interested, did not get involved in the riot. But then defended those who had. Yeah. And it's not clear who, potentiallyfferson davis but yeah he said at least a few of them were good guys and don't let this expel them oh all right so that's sweet i guess yeah he probably helped out like stonewall jackson or somebody terrible but you know that was the deal in our in our pitch though they definitely sneak in like heights you know college girls i guess there's no college

girls they gotta sneak in women though if we're gonna pitch this oh yeah yeah right like the national lampoon version has like a hot girls college across the river that's what i'm saying but i bet that you know the state of uh of women's liberation at the time wasn't strong so i guess i don't know where we're gonna we, we're going to have to, we're going to have to get this together in our room and pitch the pitch on this for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And if, if folks like weird eggnog party stories, that's going to be the whole bonus show support, stick around, check it out. And who do we, who do we cast as our,

uh, main eggnog writer? Oh, wow. I guess, I guess we're casting Jefferson Davis, but as a young fella. I guess so. Yeah. Apologies to any actor, I say.

I might go with the guy from, do you remember this Netflix show, Parody of Crime Murder Shows, about people who had graffitied penises on their high school? Oh, yeah. American Vandal. Yeah. American Vandal. Maybe the guy who starred in that. He would be fun. Yeah.

He seems like a hilarious, dim-witted bully kind of guy. Yeah. We could even, let's just use the title American Vandal. They're not using it. No. What are you talking about? This is going to be called the Eggnog Riots. Good point. Good point. American Vandal. Come on. Good note. Good note. Okay. Revising. Revising.

Yeah. Folks, that is the main episode for this week. My thanks to Joel Stein for mixing up some dairy and eggs and sugar and alcohol with me. Or not alcohol. Up to you. Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. you right now. If you support this show on Patreon.com, patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is four more weird eggnog parties. It does not just start at West Point. If people told you West Point is the biggest weirdest eggnog party of all time, not true.

Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than 10 dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. As I said, patrons pick a bunch of the topics for this show, especially here at the holidays, because I did like a big December blowout. So please come through. Please help us steer where these episodes go, because it makes them better and it makes it a lot more fun. And thank you for exploring eggnog with us.

Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, eggnog is the North American colonizer version of a British drink called posset, which combined eggs and dairy with beer. Takeaway number two, there are all sorts of international drinks comparable to eggnog. And takeaway number three, there was an 1800s eggnog riot at the U.S. Army's West Point Military Academy. Those are the U.S. Army's West Point Military Academy. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guest. He's great.

Joel Stein is the host of the new podcast, Story of the Week, and it's as Joel described it. He finds an amazing long magazine feature, talks to the writer of it, and dives into exactly what this amazing thing is in a very funny way. That also features theme music by Jonathan Colton, and it's some of the smoothest theme music I have ever heard on any podcast. It just feels good every time it hits. Joel Stein's also many things beyond that, including a wonderful author. I highly recommend

his book In Defense of Elitism. I also wrote a piece for the site 1-900-HOT-DOG that drew on that book because Joel did this amazing trip out to the home of Scott Adams, the writer of Dilbert, in a way that is just astounding and sent me down a very deep rabbit hole of that guy. So wonderful book to read and wonderful long-form type adventures packed into it. and wonderful long-form type adventures packed into it. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. One of them is a book by Wired Magazine food critic Patrick DiGiusto.

His book is called This Is What You Just Put In Your Mouth, From Eggnog to Beef Jerky, The Surprising Secrets of What's Inside Everyday Products. Again, that's Patrick DiGiusto. And then I used basically the entire internet. Leaned on stuff from Smithsonian Magazine's website, also Liquor.com, Gastro Obscura, the Folger Shakespeare Library. Find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by the Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. There's also a secretly incredibly fascinating merch store now.

So if you want to get that wonderful logo on a t-shirt or get other shirts, other posters, go to sifpod.store. That's right. The URL is sifpod.store. Or you can go to tapotico.com, which is a wonderful merch seller that I'm doing it with. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show. And thank you to all our listeners. I'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating.

So how about that? Talk to you then.