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No. 48Modern AustralianDrink

Johnny's Boozy Eggnog

Elegant and sophisticated, not too sweet — and yes, it's boozy.

John Drummond

Two small stemmed coupes of pale ivory eggnog with a fine froth and freshly grated nutmeg on top, a whole nutmeg and grater and a small cup of ristretto beside them on a dark stone bench
Prep25min
Cook15min
All up

40min+ 24 hours

Serves12
LevelMedium

Mise en place

What you need

Tick each one off as it goes in.

Custard base

For 10 boozy glasses

For 2 alcohol-free glasses

To serve

Makes 12 serves

A little something I do for my staff on the last day of work before Christmas: eggnog at 10 am on Christmas Eve. The calendar invite is half the fun. This year's shortlist: "Johnny's Boozy Eggnog – Festive Team Alignment Session", "Johnny's Boozy Eggnog & Questionable Decisions" and "Johnny's Boozy Eggnog (Coffee Available for Plausible Deniability)".

The brief was elegant and sophisticated, not too sweet, and boozy. The first version came from ChatGPT, so it went through the full three-way blind review (Claude, Grok and Codex) in October 2026 with no limits, and this is the winner. It hasn't been made in this exact form yet.

What changed, and why. It's a cooked custard, taken to 80°C and iced straight down, with no raw egg whites: right for a workplace and an Adelaide summer. Pure cream, not thickened cream; the gums in thickened cream make a cold custard slippery. 120 g of sugar, not 150. A vanilla bean and a blade of mace in the milk, with no ground cinnamon, and the nutmeg grated fresh onto every glass, because that smell is most of what people remember.

The spirit: Pierre Ferrand Ambre cognac leads, for apricot, flower and a dry finish, with Wild Turkey 101 for push through the cream and Appleton Estate 12 for perfume. Every glass is 90 ml of custard and 30 ml of spirit, so every glass is the same strength, and a day in the fridge rounds the alcohol off. If you can't get the Ferrand, use St Agnes Bartender's Cut from Renmark rather than another cognac: richer, more Christmas cake, and a touch stronger.

How strong: about 11% alcohol, roughly one standard drink per 120 ml glass (1.1 with the St Agnes). That's at 10 am at work, so it's one glass to start, the alcohol-free jug sits right beside it, and coffee doesn't make anyone sober.

The alcohol-free jug is the same custard, poured off before any spirit is near it, loosened with milk and cream so it isn't sweeter or thicker than the boozy one. It is still egg and dairy. Anyone pregnant should know it's a custard cooked to 80°C, not a raw nog; use pasteurised yolks if someone vulnerable will drink it, and still cook them.

The method

Eight moves.

  1. Ice Bath, Ready

    Two days before (22 December). Check the thermometer reads 0°C in iced water. Set a metal bowl in a big ice bath, with a fine sieve on top.

  2. Milk, Steep

    Milk, cream, salt, the vanilla seeds and pod and the mace into a heavy pan. Heat until steaming, not boiling. Off the heat, lid on, 15 minutes. Strain.

  3. Custard, Cook

    Whisk the yolks and sugar until smooth. Whisk the hot milk in gradually, then back into the pan. Low heat, stirring and scraping the bottom, until the whole custard reads 80°C and coats a spoon. Off the heat and keep stirring 30 seconds. Never past 83°C; if it starts to grain, straight onto the ice.

  4. Custard, Chill

    Strain straight into the bowl over the ice. Stir until it's under 20°C. Baking paper on the surface, then into the fridge until it's 5°C or below. Never cooled on the bench.

  5. Base, Measure

    The next day, fully cold. Measure 1,080 ml; anything over is the cook's tasting glass. Short? Every 90 ml makes one glass, so make fewer. Taste it: up to 0.5 g more salt only if it's flat. Never more sugar.

  6. Alcohol-Free, Bottle

    First, before any spirit is out. 180 ml of base, 36 ml milk, 24 ml cream. Bottle it and label it "alcohol-free".

  7. Spirits, In

    The other 900 ml of base, with the cognac, Wild Turkey and Appleton: 13, 10 and 7 ml for every 90 ml of base. Whisk well, bottle, and label it with the strength. Both bottles into the fridge for 24 hours.

  8. Serve

    Christmas Eve, 10 am. Both bottles stay in the fridge or a deep ice bath. Stick-blend each for 3–5 seconds for a fine head, the alcohol-free one first with a clean blender. Pour 120 ml into small, fridge-cold stemmed glasses, not frozen ones. Grate nutmeg generously over each as you hand it over. A ristretto on the side for anyone who wants coffee.

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Johnny's Boozy Eggnogserves 12 · 40 min + 24 hours