Hood's Holiday Eggnogs

The day after Christmas brings bountiful groceries aplenty, including cheap, cheap eggnog. I grabbed three different flavors today while cooking up a storm at Dr. D's house. Photos to come.

It fascinated and repulsed me a little that Hood would take an already rich beverage, eggnog, and add three rich flavors to it- ginger bread, sugar cookie, and cinnamon. It seemed redundant, a bit like adding butter flavor to Land O' Lakes, or something like that. But nonetheless, I had to line up a few shots of the old 'nog for myself while cooking, so there I went, down the aisles.

Getting home, the nog looked quite good. I shook it up and prepared myself for the worst. I tried the cinnamon first, and was duly unimpressed. It was like regular eggnog had been added to a little cinnamon schnapps- weak and unfulfilling. It was buttery and tasted like regular eggnog, sure, but in a blind taste test, I couldn't have discerned a difference in between regular eggnog and this. There was more of a nutmeg flavor, the quintessential taste, than anything distinctively different. It was a shame.
The gingerbread eggnog was another surprise altogether, though. For starters, it was a much darker color than I'd expected, almost like the color of actual gingerbread. The flavor was also really rich and tasty, with a heavy spice to it. I'd like to cook with this and see what I could get out of it, or mix it into another drink like a milkshake. This drink's unique flavor, as there are not many ginger-flavored beverages out in the world, and seeming versatility looks like it would be a winner as far as ideas go. I'd try this in a cheesecake or perhaps, if I were more adventurous, even as a glaze or sauce of some sort in a savory dish. This was really rich and tasty.
The last one was the sugar cookie eggnog, and though it was tasty, I really don't feel as though the flavor of sugar cookies or eggnog was exemplified. In fact, the flavor, overall, was rather strange. There was a gritty taste from the sugar cookie flavor, of too much sugar, and since they tried to make it taste like sugar cookies, there were less spices, making it rather bland. If anything, it tasted like a less boozy, liquid version of the cream used on the eggnog pancakes at IHOP. I wasn't much of a fan. The flavor was too artificial and too strange for my persona liking.
If I find the pumpking eggnog out there, I'll be sure to review that, too!