The Sect of Rama

For the past several years, I've made this egg nog recipe for my family holiday get together. The first year was just for fun, each subsequent year was at the demand of its numerous fans. It is delicious-- and a great way to find out who might be pregnant (due to avoiding raw eggs :)). Posted here verbatim from a snippet I saved from the hbd.org mailing list (Jeff is (was?) one of the primary useful contributors to the list- thanks again Jeff.)

Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 13:33:08 -0500
From: Jeff Renner 
Subject: Egg Nog recipe

It's been suggested that it's time to repost my father's egg nog 
recipe.  I posted it three years ago, and got a great response.  I 
reposted it last year with a little additional history that I was 
pleased to find out.  Hope this will become part of your holiday 
tradition as it is ours.

BTW, I notice in rereading this that I have impugned Old Forester 
bourbon.  It is a fine, old-fashioned bourbon that I like, and it 
works fine in this recipe.

Jeff

==============


My father was not a big drinker or a cook, but he was famous among 
friends and family for his egg nog.  It had a kick.  It was an old 
recipe that he modified (probably increased the booze!) from one in a 
magazine ad for Four Roses Blended Bourbon in the 1930's or 40's. 
Straight bourbon is much to be preferred.

Last evening I took a double batch to a potluck party. I made a 
further modification - an inadvertent, serendipitous mistake, that 
made it much better as a casual drinking egg nog.  I used twice the 
proper amount of half and half (resulting in proportionally half the 
eggs, sugar and liquor). Strangely, it seemed still to be well 
balanced. The original one is twice as strong and is a wonderful 
drink, but the flavor of the liquor is more evident and it must be 
drunk with more caution.  More like a cocktail, I guess.  I like them 
both, but I think that the milder one is better suited to casual 
drinking, especially by people who don't like the full flavor of 
whiskey.  And they are both easy enough to make that you'll never buy 
that horrible stuff from the grocery store again.


Harry Renner's Egg Nog

6 eggs, separated
3/4 cup sugar (set aside 1/4 cup)
1 qt. cereal milk [half and half, or one pint each milk and whipping cream]
1 cup straight bourbon
2 oz. Jamaican dark rum

Beat egg whites until stiff (RAMA NOTE: BEAT UNTIL _SOFT_ PEAKS,  
OR YOUR EGG NOG WILL SEPARATE LIKE A POORLY MADE CAPPUCCINO), 
fold or beat in 1/4 cup sugar.  Set aside.  
Beat egg yolks with 1/2 cup sugar, fold into egg white mix. 
Add cereal milk, bourbon and rum.  Serve topped with grated nutmeg.

The mistake I made was to use a *quart* each of skim milk and 
whipping cream (actually I made a double batch; or was it a 
quadruple?).

Dad always used Myer's rum and Old Forester bourbon, but if you are 
making it full strength and will be able to taste the liquor, better 
bourbon will make a difference.  Two years ago we used Knob Creek 
(~$25) and the difference was remarkable.  Jim Beam Black Label 
(~$15) or Wild Turkey 101 (~$18) would be two other, less expensive, 
but still somewhat premium choices.  Of course, these three are 
higher proof, so drink accordingly.  I suspect there are better 
choices than Myer's rum, too, but it has served us well.

And now an amusing anecdote for your holiday enjoyment:

Scene: a streetcar in Cincinnati, circa 1950.
Characters:  Little four-year-old Jeff and his grandma, returning 
from downtown Christmas shopping, and other passengers.

Jeff, in a loud voice:  "Grandma, don't forget you said that you 
needed to stop and get rummy for the egg noggin!"

Grandma and passengers laugh.

Jeff feels very embarrassed and the memory is seared in his brain, 
even though no one else remembers.

Happy holidays!

Jeff

=================

Among the people I sent it to was Gary Regan, author of a number of 
fine books on whiskies and cocktails ( http://www.ardentspirits.com). 
He sent me this email:

Hi Jeff:

I wrote to Dale DeGroff, and sure enough, the original recipe came 
from a relative of his!  Here's what he wrote back:

Hi Gary,

The recipe that Jeff's dad adapted from the Four Roses ad was My 
Grandmother's brother's recipe. He submitted the recipe to them in 
some kind of contest and  the four Roses Pr people or who ever 
handled the advertising in those days sent a release for him to sign 
for its use on the bottle and in ads. His name was Dominic 
Gencarelli, he owned a Granite quarry in Rhode Island among other 
things. He was an engineer and figured out a way to build stone 
jettys into the ocean without renting barges and tugboats. His 
Italian stone cutters cut the stone in the quarry in such a way that 
on side the stone was flat and the trucks could drive out on the 
jetty as it was being built. he built a lot of the jettys along the 
east coast especially in New England, but some here on Long Island as 
well.

He always had two bowls of the punch at Christmas , one for the kids 
and one for the grown-ups...here is the recipe., and incidently what 
made the recipe special was its lightness twice as much milk as cream 
and the white of the egg whipped stiff and folded in to the mix , so 
it was almost like clouds on top of the egg nog;

EGG NOG (Uncle Angelo's) 1 batch (6 people)
6 eggs (separated)
1 qt. milk
1 pint cream
1 tbsp. ground nutmeg
3/4 cup sugar
3 oz. bourbon
3 oz. spice rum

Beat egg yolks well until they turn light in color, adding half a cup 
of sugar as you beat. Add milk, cream and liquor to finished yolks. 
Then beat egg whites until they peak. Fold whites into mixture. Grate 
fresh nutmeg over drink.

Cheers
Dale DeGroff
aka " http://www.kingcocktail.com/index.html" King Cocktail

==========

And then a final note from HBD after my posting of this recipe last year:

Subject: Re: Raw Eggs and Salmonella

Brewers

A self described HBD lurker wrote me privately regarding my egg nog recipe:

> >Aren't you running a risk of salmonella poisoning with the use of
> >raw eggs? In the past, this may not have been an issue but I believe
> >it is one today.
> >
> >Having come very close to losing a daughter during the salmonella
> >outbreak in Chicago 17 years ago, I freely admit to being paranoid
> >about the risk.

Thanks for pointing this out.  As a parent, I can only imagine how 
that would affect your feelings.

I continue to use raw eggs in egg nog (and eat sunny egg yolks when I 
occasionally eat fried eggs).  I have based my evaluation of risk on 
Mark Bittman's wonderful newish (1998) cookbook, "How to Cook 
Everything" (winner of multiple cookbook writing awards):

"As for salmonella and eggs: Recent statistics indicate that a small 
number of eggs (about one in ten thousand, or fewer) may contain the 
salmonella bacteria.  If this bacteria multiplies - unlikely in 
refrigerated uncracked eggs - and you eat the egg raw (as you would 
in mayonnaise) or undercooked (as you would in many eggs cooked for 
breakfast), you might become ill, suffering intestinal problems that 
are as bad as the flu.  The very young, very old, or those with 
compromised immune systems may have even worse problems and should 
avoid recipes with raw or undercooked eggs.  But the general 
population should consider eggs safe, and eat them without fear, 
especially if they have been handled properly."

The government, of course, takes the very cautious approach 
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/salment_g.htm, but notes 
that the risk is highest (1 in 10,000) in the northeast.

For less cautious view see http://www.mercola.com/2002/nov/13/eggs.htm.

Happy holidays.

Jeff