“Verily, hard times and temperance are not friendly to egg-nogg,” read an 1842 article in the Arkansas Gazette. Thankfully, tempestuous economic winds never completely extinguished the South’s love of the holiday punch, and the Historic Arkansas Museum in Little Rock will this year throw its Twentieth-Ever Nog-Off on December 13. What its founders originally conceived of as a fun and tasty pun-spiked competition-slash-celebration of family eggnogs has since become a wildly popular event featuring recipes that are, as the “nontraditional” category suggests, not your great-great-great-grandfather’s nog. “We started with the ancient eggnogs, but we are giving a chance for all these creative people to build on the tradition,” says the museum’s former education director, Starr Mitchell. Entries have of course included rum and bourbon, but also such surprises as chai spices and local honey.
Southern Agenda
Punch Bowl
Illustration: Tim Bower