Life

The Best Ways To Spike Your Eggnog

by Pamela J. Hobart

Sweet, thick, creamy, and only a touch eggy, eggnog is without a doubt the most polarizing drink of the season. But regardless of whether or not you actually like how it tastes, you do like alcohol, which brings me to the question at hand: Can eggnog make you drunk? In addition to adding festive cheer to your celebrations, eggnog can certainly get you drunk — it just depends on how you like to drink it. While other drinks serve as good mixers by accident, eggnog's natural state is actually a boozy one. It's those virgin cartons of eggnog in the dairy aisle of the supermarket that are in the wrong.

Since the invention of its close relative, a drink called "posset," by monks in the 13th century, eggnog has contained alcohol of some kind or another — at first sherry, but then it branched out. George Washington's favored version allegedly expanded upon that to include brandy, whiskey, rye, and rum as well. Thankfully, there are no rules restricting which alcohol you should add. All holiday traditions change over time, so why shouldn't this one?

With just enough booze of your choosing to get you feeling warm and cheery, eggnog is actually the perfect cold-weather sustenance. Think of it as a merry winter Soylent! You can drink your spiked eggnog with only one hand emerging from your Snuggie, so as not to let the drafts ruin your buzz. And there are plenty of options to try over the course of the next couple months. Here are four amazing ways to add alcohol to your eggnog:

Rum

George Washington preferred the Jamaican variety of rum, which is pungent with alleged banana and pineapple notes. I'd probably choose a lighter rum myself, but hey, to each her own.

Butterscotch Schnapps

Hopefully you didn't ruin this stuff for yourself by drinking one too many buttery nipple shots sometime in college. Butterscotch schnapps is delicious, but you can't really drink it straight. That's where the eggnog comes in.

Kahlua

This well-known and well-loved coffee liqueur can turn your regular old eggnog into an Eggnog Russian. Brilliant.

Frangelico

Looking for something even classier? I ordered this hazelnut liqueur years ago not knowing what to expect, and was very, very pleasantly surprised. If it's too late in the day for a hazelnut latte, then you should move on to the hazelnut eggnog instead.

For more great holiday ideas, check out Bustle on YouTube.

Image: fudio/Fotolia, Katie/Flickr; Fotolia