The Southern Origins of Eggnog

Winter often brought reprieve in the wars of the past, but not in the Eggnog War. Unlike the fashionable moral ambiguities peddled by our gender-ambiguous storytellers, this war permits no compromise. Here we find no fashionable shades of gray—we’re not flipping houses. The Eggnog Question divides as clearly as foundations—rock against sand. Eggnog-haters are going back! 

The history proves as substantial as the drink itself. In eggnog, we find something quintessentially American, a Christmas tradition that speaks most clearly in a Southern accent. What started in Albion’s taverns grew into something else. Something ours. 

The Consensus 

Posset is an old drink from an old world. Hot ale or wine and eggs and spices thrown together in medieval halls when common folk could only talk about its smell. By the 13th century, milk and sugar joined the mix, cementing its status as a drink for the lords and ladies. 

The drink crossed the Atlantic with British settlers in the 1700s, and the new world changed it. Caribbean rum, cheap and easy to find, replaced the brandy and sherry of the old country. With an abundance of milk and eggs, it became a drink enjoyed by Yankees, Yeomen, Cavaliers, Crackers, and Fur Trappers. The name “eggnog” emerged during this period, though its origin remains disputed. Some claim it came from sailors combining “egg” with their “grog.” Another group says it refers to the word “noggin” borrowed from Scottish drinkers who knew their small cups well. Others point to Norfolk’s strong ale called “nog.” 

The word “eggnog” first appeared in American records toward the end of the 18th century, finding its most thorough early description in William Attmore’s 1787 “Journal of a Tour to North Carolina.” He noted, with particular interest, that the taking of “drams” before breakfast was not merely accepted but customary in North Carolina. His Christmas Day account preserves the precise preparation: five eggs separated, yolks mixed with brown sugar, whites beaten until astonishingly firm, these elements combined, and rum carefully stirred into the mixture. 

Prior to Attmore’s notes, Jonathan Boucher, a Maryland clergyman and friend to George Washington, referenced “eggnog” in a poem composed around 1775, yet published later. By 1788, the term began appearing in documents throughout the colonies, establishing its place in early American vernacular. 

PSA The supposedly historic Washington Eggnog recipe, multiplied across print and pixels like biblical loaves and fishes, proves to be entirely apocryphal.

A Southern Christmas Tradition 

From Attmore’s 1787 observation grew the first documented link between Eggnog and Southern Christmas celebrations. By the early 1800s, this union had become indissoluble. Christmas morning in Southern homes, particularly on plantations, began with the sacred mixing of eggnog. As men hauled in the Yule log at dawn’s first light, servants assembled the precious ingredients. The grandest families served from ancestral punch bowls—magnificent vessels holding thirty-six gallons, each bearing the weight of generations. The preparation became one thread in the intricate tapestry of Christmas

preparations beginning weeks before: the butchering of hogs, the making of mincemeat, the gathering of evergreens. Households carefully accumulated alcohol and dairy products, knowing eggnog would crown the holiday’s numerous libations. 

Eggnog served as the South’s liquid handshake, extended to everyone from the nearest neighbor to the most distant traveler. Even the Civil War’s harsh deprivations couldn’t kill this tradition. Hospital matrons, seeing in the drink both comfort and healing, prepared it for their wounded charges. In army camps, soldiers scoured the countryside for eggs and spirits, desperate to preserve this taste of home during the holidays. 

The standard recipe by 1815 called for separating six eggs or more, divided between yolk and white. The yolks married first with sugar, then spirits—rum leading the way, though brandy and whiskey made frequent appearances, sometimes joined by Madeira or sherry. Milk or cream provided substance, while beaten whites were gently folded in. Nutmeg or lemon zest crowned the mixture. Hot eggnog made with warmed milk was a popular variant—as was the single-glass version—where a whole egg was shaken with sugar, milk, and spirits. 

The Haters 

The Prohibition regime sought to strangle the venerable custom of greeting Christmas guests with proper Eggnog. Those years produced anemic substitutes like “Boiled Custard,” born in the longhouses of temperance reformers. Today, a different breed of cultural revolutionaries pursues destruction: they melt statues, topple monuments, and engineer demographic decline. These Eggnog-haters, in their contempt for ancestral wisdom, shall receive no Christmas Truce of 1914. One does not negotiate with vandals of heritage. 

Nog and Order 

The Eggnog Question transcends mere preference. To claim Southern identity while rejecting this tradition reveals one as either a Carpetbagger or, more contemptibly, a Scalawag. And to all others—whether Yankees, Midwesterners, Californians, or simply Americans—Eggnog flows through your cultural bloodstream just the same.

In “The Search for Order in American Society,” Andrew Nelson Lytle discovered what we should have known, traditional cuisine can anchor a civilization. Eggnog remains one of our strongest anchors: 

“A traditional cuisine, composed of culinary crafts, the basic ones inherited, does two things to stabilize society. It demands good manners, and this restrains appetite and thus makes for the etiquette of the table, which in turn makes for a respectful savoring of the dishes served, good conversation, and a celebration of a social amity among the diners. It maintains leisure, which gives pause for reflection, upon which the arts and, for the last four hundred years, history had depended. Memory, through recollection, into song, I believe is the classic inheritance the Western world has abandoned in its reduction of man to his physical dimensions. The taste and odor of the family victuals, which has the common taste of a province or region, binds the solitary to the family and the family to a place . . .” 

History has rendered its verdict. Eggnog disrespecters were rejected at the ballot box. Come join a rich and creamy inherited tradition that spans centuries and continents. Cheers! 

Tennessee Eggnog 

• 6 eggs, separated 
• 1 pound confectioners sugar 
• 1 pint bourbon whiskey 
• 2 pints heavy cream 
• ¼ pint dark rum 

Separate eggs. Put egg whites in tightly sealed jar in refrigerator. Beat egg yolks very lightly. Add to egg yolks alternate amounts of sugar and whiskey, very slowly, and in very small quantity. Can use electric mixer at low speed. Put this mixture in a quart jar in the refrigerator for 24 hours.

When ready to serve, whip cream and add egg-yolk-whiskey mixture. Beat egg whites until stiff and add last. The “trick” is to add the egg yolks very, very slowly just a trickle. This keeps for some time, but at least 24 hours is required for whiskey to slowly “cook” the egg yolks.

YIELD: 12 SERVINGS (The Southern Junior League Cookbook, 1986)