A Southern Holiday Cheer

We thought that the best way to kick off this blog about the Mr. Boston bar guide was to drink something that isn’t in it: Southern Comfort Vanilla Spice Eggnog.  We didn’t plan it this way but since it is Christmas time we felt it was appropriate. Of course it is now after Christmas, but feel free to bookmark this page and check it every day until next Christmas and eventually it will be relevant.

The Mr. Boston guide has an entire chapter on eggnog with over a dozen different recipes.  Most of them include store bought (!) eggnog.  None of them include Southern Comfort, though.  What the heck is Southern Comfort, anyway?  I’m familiar with the classic Powers Booth tour de force where a bunch of soldiers fight some Cajuns, but I always thought the alcohol was bourbon.  In fact, it is a "fruit, spice and whiskey flavored liqueur" and comes in at 70 proof.  

We went to the liquor store to get a bottle and learned something else: The 750ml size came in a plastic version and a glass version.   Being slightly snobby, we bought the glass version.  We figure that glass=class.  The plastic one would be good for carrying around in a paper bag I suppose. It would certainly remain intact in a street fight.

Before we made the drink we sampled a little of it straight and got a strong whiskey note, but a not altogether horrible flavor.

The drink itself was pretty easy to make.  You just mix 4 parts nog to one part SoCo and garnish with a cinnamon stick. We don’t know about you, but we don’t have cinnamon sticks sitting around so we compromised and sprinkled some ground cinnamon on top:

Looks tasty, no?  It was, in fact, pretty tasty.  There was a strong vanilla flavor but not overbearing.  You could taste the alcohol, but in a nice way.  The only real complaint was that the drink was extremely rich.  It was almost like drinking a milkshake.  We love milkshakes, but we don’t want more than one. 

Ratings on a 10 point scale

Taste: 7

Ease of Preparation: 9

Presentation: 7

Drinks until blackout: 8 – With a 7% total alcohol content it would take quite a few of these.  We imagine it would be like trying to drink a gallon of milk.