Ever had homemade egg nog? I did once. At a party in college. We were scared of it, and sipped on it politely until we could make our way one by one to the bathroom and flush it away.

Since then, I've been more than happy with the supermarket stuff, particularly with the advent of the reduced-fat variety. But during last weekend's big snow, we were pretty well in for the evening by 3 in the afternoon. Four Christmas movies in hand and Thai food on the way, we needed that special something to take that mid-December evening over the top.

So I separated four eggs, and whisked the yolks together with 1/3 cup of sugar until they turned lighter in color, and got fluffy. Then I added 4 cups skim milk, 1 cup cream and about 1/2 cup of good ol' Kentucky bourbon. That mixture went into the fridge while I cleaned the hell out of my mixing bowl and spatula. Then the egg whites got beaten with 1 tablespoon of sugar, and I folded the stiff whites in with the yolk mixture.

I left it alone for a good hour, and the whites had created a foam on the top so the whole thing tasted like a milkshake. Mmmm. And so easy.