Baltimore Eggnog

The classic 1862 Baltimore Eggnog pairs brandy with Madeira, egg, and milk for a silky, layered holiday sipper — with popular three-spirit variations.

The Baltimore Eggnog appears in Jerry Thomas's landmark 1862 guide How to Mix Drinks, or the Bon Vivant's Companion — the first significant American cocktail manual and a foundational text for professional bartending in the United States. Thomas documented it as a regional variation set apart from ordinary eggnogs by the addition of Madeira wine. In his original party-sized formula the spirituous base is a single choice of good brandy or Jamaica rum, married to Madeira and then enriched with egg, sugar, and generous milk; a kindred version had already appeared in Eliza Leslie's 1837 Directions for Cookery, which likewise called for rum or brandy. The Madeira is historically fitting to Maryland's port culture: Baltimore was a major early-American import hub, and Madeira — the fortified wine from Portugal's Madeira Islands — was among the most prestigious imported wines in colonial and early American society, favored because its fortification let it survive the long Atlantic voyage and months of aging in ship hulls. Pairing one rich spirit with Madeira gives the classic version a focused, layered character: the wine's dried-fruit and oxidized nuttiness set against the base spirit's depth, with beaten egg binding the drink into its silky texture. Variations: Many modern bartenders build the Baltimore Eggnog with all three spirits at once — cognac (brandy), Jamaican rum, and Madeira. An equal-parts pour balances the trio evenly; a brandy-forward pour leads with cognac and treats the rum and Madeira as smaller accents. Any version scales up as a punch by multiplying each ingredient by the number of servings, the way Thomas originally served it.