In the abstract, the notion that some people don't want to drink eggnog makes sense: diabetics, say, or the lactose-intolerant or egg-allergic, or those principled self-denying oddballs who prefer not to replace their entire body mass gradually with dietary fat and cholesterol until they resemble nothing so much as…

Maybe you were thinking that eggnog gets its flavor from nutmeg and cinnamon and sugar and booze. Maybe you were thinking that if anything about this rich, sweet beverage were harmful, surely it'd be the raw egg and the cream, and the occasionally gastrointestinally hazardous combination of alcohol and those…

Ever since I was old enough to form holiday memories, my favorite thing about the Christmas season has been eggnog. As a minor in the 1970s, of course, I was relegated to the cheap, artificially colored, gelatinous goop that was found in the dairy section of my local supermarket. Thickened with unrecognizable…