And here in Germany, the sweetened egg/dairy drink of choice is Dutch Advocaat (which was originally thickened with avocados!) or Eierlikör, which is less strongly associated with the holidays and is made particularly thick with eggs, sugar/honey and condensed or evaporated milk. The Coquito is a spiced coconut-milk variation in Puerto Rico. While on a quest for more information on the Tom & Jerry, you can read down through history along a winding path, passing by the various types of egg-milk cocktail concoctions, from 15th-century Possets (rich and desserty English drinks) and Caudles (more of a thick, sweet drink for recovery from illness or childbirth) to “Milk Punches,” Egg Flips and the better-known Eggnogs that are ubiquitous in the United States at Christmas.
This cocktail was created by a British journalist in the 1820s as a publicity stunt for one of his books, and it didn’t really catch on over there like it did in the states. I’d also assumed the Tom & Jerry was an old English recipe, but in fact, that’s only half true. This variation of eggnog is actually rather unknown outside the upper midwestern states of the US these days. They talked and laughed in the kitchen while sipping hot mugs of these eggnog-like cocktails, a Christmas-only, adult-only treat that I naturally assumed was universal and timeless.īut, surprise! As I learned just recently, the Tom & Jerry is not the universally loved Christmas cocktail I assumed it was. In my (now quite fuzzy) childhood memories of the ’70s and early ’80s, the adults in my life were young and long-haired. All of these are pulled out for making Tom & Jerrys at Christmas, and for the rest of the year they hibernate quietly in cardboard boxes alongside the other festive holiday decor. My mother owns a Tom & Jerry punch bowl and the accompanying traditional mugs (as seen here).