Eggnog Is Gross and You Cannot Make Me Like It

Eggnog is upsetting to me on levels that I don’t entirely understand. I like liking things. It’s my jam. (So is jam.) But eggnog, man. I just can’t wrap my head around why anyone would find it the least bit appealing. Booze, OK, sure, but you can sneak that into anything if you’re clever and/or desperate enough. It doesn’t need to be bolstered by the slip and slime of egg-thickened cream, and I’m feeling slightly nauseated just typing that. It’s eggnog's texture, definitely, that puts me off. Why, in a season when mucus-glopped head colds abound, would a person seek to introduce more sludge into their system?

I’m not usually squeamish about foods, especially when it comes to texture. Cartilage, natto, eyeballs: lemme at ‘em. Eggnog, though—I have such a visceral reaction to just the thought of opening my mouth and choking down the cloying horror. A human should not drink eggs, I think. Eat, yes. As frequently and joyfully as their general practitioner deems feasible. But melded with cream, sugar, and spices, they seem like a batter, a sauce, a dare.

And yes, I have had homemade eggnog. That’s the first thing evangelists say when you dare disparage their drink. Ohhhh, you must only have had that supermarket carton crap, laden with preservatives, bilge, and plastic. You must sample my Uncle Heinrich’s traditional recipe from the far reaches of Noglandia. It’s the only authentic method out there, and in addition to being delicious, it cures stubborn rashes and grants the drinker a small measure of immortality. I drink it, because I am polite, curious, and optimistic. This is never rewarded. It is always gross, and I am left slightly depressed.

Is there something wrong with me on a fundamental pleasure-processing level, I ask myself annually. So this year, I took to Twitter with a poll to discern people’s level of love or loathing for the seasonal beverage. I felt, I am glad to say, slightly normalized. Though I am agog at the percentage of self-proclaimed nog lovers walk among us (seriously—it’s like chilled, spiced snot and it makes me question so many things about the way they process the world), I was heartened to see an almost equal balance of right-thinking drinkers who are disgusted by eggnog. While plenty of people are glugging it down by the carton-load like my ex-boyfriend used to and ohhhh...insight!, others expressed sentiments like "I think you need a further negative option, like 'the smell alone makes me sick'" and “My gastrointestinal system would like its own vote.”

I don’t tend to take pleasure in yucking anyone else’s yum, and I would never impede anyone else’s personal enjoyment of the stuff, but fondness or even tolerance of the stuff just isn’t in the cards for me. Go ahead and drink your share, and mine, too. I’m nog gonna stop you.