The 2010 Egg Nog Tasting

Well, it appears that I’ve missed the opportunity to partake in the annual 12 Days of Christmas Posting, but while I won’t be posting every day like I’ve done the past few years, I’ll still try to make some holiday posts. I’ll start with the annual family egg nog tasting. I’ve documented this for the past few years, and this year started out in similar fashion, with 13 different varieties of eggnog:

A Shitload of Egg Nog

For reference, these are the eggnogs pictured (from left to right):

  • Lehigh Valley Eggnog (not pictured)
  • Target Holiday Egg Nog
  • Silk Nog
  • Hood Pumpkin Eggnog
  • Rice Dream Rice Nog
  • Target Holiday Milk
  • Borden Eggnog
  • Swiss Farms Egg Nog
  • Wawa Egg Nog
  • Wegman’s Holiday Egg Nog
  • Upstate Farms Premium Egg Nog
  • Hood Golden Eggnog
  • Southern Comfort Traditional Egg Nog

There was some controversy this year, notably centered around the competition for “Worst Egg Nog”. You see, someone brought something from Target called “Holiday Milk”, which was essentially strawberry milk… not an eggnog. This turned out to be a moot point, as it wasn’t all that bad. As expected, the contest for worst eggnog came down to two options: Rice Dream Rice Nog and Silk Nog. I suppose neither of these are technically egg nog either, but in any case, Silk Nog came away as the “Champion”. This is not to say that Rice Dream wasn’t seriously considered, but it really just tastes like dirty, cinnamon flavored dishwater. That sounds bad (and it is!), but the watery consistency actually washes down quickly, unlike Silk Nog, which has an even worse taste coupled with the thick consistency of actual eggnog, meaning that it coats your mouth and lingers for a while. Therefore, Silk Nog reigns as the worst Eggnog (substitute) ever.

When it came to judging for “Best Overall Eggnog”, things were a little more interesting. This year’s tasting started out in our traditional, completely subjective manner, but then we narrowed the field down to 5 finalists (Wawa, Swiss Farms, Wegman’s, Upstate Farms, and Target), and prepared a blind tasting methodology where our panel of 6 judges would rate each eggnog on Taste, Appearance and Viscosity.

Blind Taste Test

The cups on the right were the “palate cleansers” and consisted of Rice Dream Rice Nog. It was surprisingly effective. Now, don’t get me wrong, this test was still far from scientific, but the methodology was much more thorough this year… and yet, we came out with similar results! Last year, there was a tie between Wawa and Swiss Farms Egg Nog. This year, Swiss Farms takes home the prize, but it only nudged out Wawa by a small margin.

The best tasting note of the day came from my sister-in-law’s sister, who claimed that Southern Comfort Traditional Eggnog (I think) tasted like suntan lotion. Once she said it, I couldn’t not taste the suntan lotion. Disgusting. Anyway, it was a good year, and I’m looking forward to next year.