Every year the holiday food item I get most excited about around Christmas time has got to be eggnog. Even after recovering from The Great Eggnog Incident of ‘98, where I accidentally dropped a whole gallon of eggnog at the top of my parent’s stairs and it tumbled agonizingly down the entire set of carpeted steps :(  It felt like one of those slow motion moments where you’re standing at the top of the stairs screaming “Noooooooooo!!”, arms a-flailing helplessly while you’re just watching horrified at the mess it is creating as it’s shooting out like a geyser all over the carpet and walls. My parents were surprisingly gracious and kind despite the worst mess ever, bless their hearts. Needless to say, if I can get past that trauma and still enjoy eggnog today, anyone can :)


Today I wanted to talk about my favorite things to mix in with eggnog. Some of these combinations sound kind of weird but I’m telling you, you should definitely give them a try and see what you think. I must preface this by saying that none of these contain alcohol, which I know is the most common thing adults like to mix in their eggnog. “Light on the egg, heavy on the nog,” as they say. These ideas could be for a party with children or of course anyone who doesn’t want it heavy on the nog. 

Everybody in my family growing up seems to be quite passionate about eggnog, so we had a discussion about our favorite mix-ins. My brother, who lives right next to the dairy in Idaho with the world’s absolute BEST chocolate milk (The secret is that the chocolate milk actually has potato flakes mixed in, believe it or not! It makes it extra creamy and thick.) Anyway, he was mentioning that his two favorite things to mix in are chocolate milk, as well as orange soda. I’ve got to be honest, at first I thought he was joking. Orange soda sounded preposterous! Blasphemous! But then I realized we would always mix a little Sprite with our eggnog growing up so going from lemon and lime citrus to orange didn’t seem that far a jump.


Chocolate Milk and Eggnog

I also mentioned the chocolate milk to my friend Kelly, whose husband worked at this Reed’s dairy for years. She gave me the inside scoop of the chocolate milk/eggnog combo. It is actually so popular that they sell it in grocery stores as that mixture of half chocolate milk/half eggnog. Apparently, they had half a vat of chocolate milk still in the giant mixer when someone accidentally poured eggnog in with the chocolate milk. They thought “Ehhh, what the heck? We’ll give it a try!” They all loved it and the rest is history. 

I didn’t have Reed’s dairy chocolate milk, but I got the best thing I could find in the stores near me. This combination is delicious! It feels like the chocolate milk cuts down the sweetness of the eggnog a bit and the subtle taste of chocolate comes through ever so slightly. I really enjoyed this and could see myself having at least a glass of this every year. It is quite similar to diluting eggnog with regular milk, but you have that subtle lovely chocolate flavor at the end.

Orange Soda and Egg Nog 


Next up, orange soda and egg nog—why not?? I got a nice two liter of orange Fanta and poured it in. Of course it produced quite a bit of creamy foam at the top, which is lovely. The flavor of this combination is perfect because it tastes like an orange dreamsicle on steroids because of the addition of the cozy winter spices from the eggnog. I really enjoyed the orange soda and eggnog combination.

I am not the expert on the boozy combinations, but feel free to add any comments of things you love to mix in your eggnog below. If you were having a party and have eggnog and would like to have some nonalcoholic beverages for kids or anyone else, you could add these two additional drinks to the table and encourage your guests to try these combinations. I think you’ll really enjoy them! 

    Mary Richardson
    Weekly Newsletter Contributor since 2014
    Email the author! mary@dvo.com