This is a reminder, as much to myself as anyone else, that if it’s early November, it’s time to make the eggnog—specifically aged eggnog—so it’ll be ready in time for the holidays.

I first learned about aged eggnog from Michael Ruhlman, after an extinct blog post he wrote in 2008, but it wasn’t until last November (4,700 days later to be precise—note to self: set a recurring calendar reminder) that I finally had the foresight to make some in time. And it was awesome! The idea occurred to me again yesterday, and along with it came this faint recollection that I had wanted to tweak the recipe, but I couldn’t recall how. Luckily I dug up an email from last year which helped me reconstruct the memory.

I’d learned from the comments on Ruhlman’s 2014 post that he recommends Maker’s Mark or Buffalo Trace for the bourbon. As I’ve never been a big fan of brown liquors, this recommendation helped, as did reading the Wikipedia page on bourbon whiskey, where I learned that “the bourbon distilleries that produce Buffalo Trace, Maker’s Mark, and Woodford Reserve are National Historic Landmarks in Kentucky.” That made me take notice. I was able to pick up some Buffalo Trace at Trader Joe’s last year, and I was blown away by how good it was. Consider me converted. This year I’m using Maker’s Mark because that’s what Trader Joe’s had when I stopped by. I also learned from the comments that Ruhlman had updated the recipe for publication in his cookbook, Egg. He reduced the sugar slightly, he used half-and-half instead of milk and cream (in the US, whole milk has 3.25% fat and heavy whipping cream has 36% fat, so when Ruhlman combined 4 cups of whole milk with 1 cup of heavy cream in his original blog post recipe, the resulting 5 cups (or 1.18 L) had 9.8% fat, therefore half-and-half, with its 10.5–18% fat, is a nearly identical substitute; in other parts of the world, i.e. France, where half-and-half doesn’t exist, use cream with 10–12% fat), and he adjusted the alcohol mix. He noted that “this recipe is pretty boozy—feel free to reduce the alcohol to 1 liter total, or to taste. I like the mix of boozes for flavor but anything goes here.” I took him up on his suggestion and just stuck with equal parts bourbon and dairy. Lastly I opted to halve the recipe, yielding approximately 1,200 ml (or 40 oz) of eggnog—which annoyed me because it’s too much for a single 32 oz Ball jar and not enough for a 64 oz jar. Perfection in my book would be two 32 oz jars filled to the shoulder with about 800 ml each (or one-third more than my half batch).

For the benefit of future-me, here’s what I’ll make next November:

• 8 egg yolks
• 200 grams sugar
• 667 ml half-and-half (alas, there’ll be some of the quart leftover)
• 667 ml bourbon (Buffalo Trace, Woodford Reserve, or Maker’s Mark)
• 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

Combine the yolks and sugar. Whisk in the half-and-half, bourbon, and vanilla until the sugar is dissolved. Pour through a fine mesh strainer into two 32 oz Ball jars, seal with leak-proof lids, and refrigerate for at least 3 weeks. Serve over ice.