DadNog label showing a Spanish galleon, some cartoon birds, and man wearing a pirate hat drinking some nog

My wife loves eggnog, but I can’t stand eggs - I eat cakes and egg noodles, but nothing where I can taste, smell, or otherwise detect the presence of poultry ova. Nonetheless, every year, I ensure we have a bottle in the house so she can enjoy a snowball on Christmas morning.

This year, I was unable to find a single bottle in any of the major supermarkets and to prevent disappointment, resolved to make my own.

There are a bunch of recipes out there, and while there are variations, they all have the same basic ingredients: loads of eggs, sugar, cream, spirit of your choice.

I used a supermarket own’brand spiced rum as the base, and the result was universally loved.

As mentioned, I don’t like eggs, but it occurred to me that barring the rum, what we were looking at was basically a custard recipe.

Egg-free custard is a thing in the form of Birds custard powder, and in the spirit of experimentation I modified the recipe to create DadNog.

A head-to-head test with friends on New Year’s Eve showed that people other the me found it quite palatable and an acceptable alternative to both my own home-made eggnog (with eggs), and mainstream brands such as Warninks.