Eggnog Punch

Bourbon, eggs, cream, and nutmeg in a punch bowl — America's oldest holiday drink, George Washington's Mount Vernon version using rye, rum, and sherry.

Eggnog is one of America's oldest and most specifically seasonal drinks, with a documented history that stretches to the colonial period and a consistent association with Christmas and New Year celebrations. The drink's probable English ancestor is posset — a warm mixture of hot ale or wine with eggs, sugar, and spices consumed medicinally and festively in medieval and Tudor England. In Colonial America, where rum and later bourbon were more readily available than the brandy and sherry used in English versions, the formula evolved into a spirit-enriched egg-and-cream punch served cold or warm at holiday gatherings. George Washington's eggnog recipe, preserved in family papers and reproduced by the Mount Vernon estate, called for rye whiskey, rum, and sherry combined with eggs, cream, and sugar — a formula of considerable potency that Washington apparently served to his guests at Christmas each year. Bourbon replaced mixed spirits as the standard American eggnog base through the 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly in Kentucky and the American South, where the spirit was deeply embedded in holiday tradition. The eggnog punch format scales the holiday drink into a communal bowl appropriate for parties: the egg, cream, sugar, and spirit base is prepared in advance and served from a large vessel with ladle, nutmeg grated fresh over each cup, and often a meringue-whipped egg white topping that floats on the surface.