With its combination of base spirit, sweet vermouth, and a small portion of the flavorful ringer that, in this case, is green Chartreuse — and its lack of bitters — it’s a fairly close relative of last week’s original Corpse Reviver. It’s also worth noting as being another of the very small but apparently growing group of cocktails to be made with Irish whiskey.

A few years ago, I found myself in an Irish pub in San Diego and I asked the bartender if he knew any Irish whiskey cocktails aside from Irish coffee. He had no idea. Well, now if you find yourself in an Irish bar, here’s another suggestion (assuming they’ve got some green chartreuse on hand).

The Tipperary

2 oz. Irish whiskey
3/4 oz. sweet vermouth
1/2 oz. green Chartreuse
Lemon twist (garnish)

Combine the ingredients, stir, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. (A wine glass may also do for this one.) Add the lemon twist, sip, and salute the sweetest girl you know.

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I can’t explain why, but I just couldn’t bring myself to try this one shaken, but I can’t stop you from doing so. As for brands, I tried both the classic Bushmills and the two less familiar brands that we’ve been playing with here in recent weeks, Concannon and Kilbeggan. While Bushmills is my actual favorite of the three — none of them are remotely bad — I was surprised to see that it was the darkhorse Concannon that held up most formidably among the onslaught of sweet vermouth and Chartreuse.

As for the vermouth, Carpano Antica, once again, beautifully dominated the drink, but Noilly Pratt, as usual, produced a nice harmony as well. If you feel tempted to try other proportions, feel free. There are numerous variations of this drink online that I wish I had time to play with. Gary Regan’s involves rinsing the glass with Chartreuse and then dumping the remains, which sounds a bit wasteful but might well be worth giving a try.

I could go on a bit more about this drink, but there’s really not that much to say. It’s been a sad and bittersweet week for those of us in the writing and media game as Roger Ebert’s death still hangs heavy in the air. Roger had stopped drinking before he became as world famous as he was destined to be and I’m not sure if it’s even right to mention him here. At the same time, it doesn’t seem right not to mention him here, and he did enjoy spending time in a good bar even after he stopped actually drinking.

It’s even odder to post a clip from a classic TV show rather than a classic movie — except, of course, that Roger was also part of a truly great TV show — but this is the best usage of the most famous song about Tipperary that I know. It’s also about the ending of something wonderful.

Still, the real reason I was going to go AWOL on eggnog was that I was simply intimidated. I imagined fresh eggnog to be a very complicated drink to make; a drink that might even force me to break my no-blenders rule. classic drink though it be. The online recipes telling me that I had to start with a 6 or more eggs, separate the yolks from the whites and perform various operations on them only reinforced that assumption.

Then, however, I started Googling “eggnog for one” and a great revelation came to me. Really, all this drink is a raw egg — provisos and disclaimers to come — milk, sugar, vanilla flavor, and booze. I have to say that, even if I have a sentimental attachment for the gooey store bought stuff, this shockingly easy, if slightly messy, home made version beats that all to heck.

So, here goes, the drink recipe I never thought I’d post.

Eggnog

1.5 ounces of your choice of cognac/brandy, bourbon, Canadian whiskey, or rum
1 large egg
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 ounce heavy cream (optional)
2 ounces full fat milk if not using heavy cream; with cream use 1.5 ounces
4-5 teaspoons superfine or powdered sugar
Ground nutmeg (garnish)
1 cinnamon stick (optional garnish)

Add your choice of booze to the egg and beat in the certainly mistaken belief that the alcohol will kill any errant bacteria lurking in the egg. The booze does, however, loosen up the egg and make it easier to beat. You might as well throw in the vanilla extract at this stage, because that’s got some alcohol, too, right? (Note to fellow vanilla lowers — 1/4 teaspoon of extract per serving is all you need. I tried doubling it on one attempt, and it kind of threw off the balance. The stuff’s expensive, anyhow.)

Pour the eggy booze/boozy egg mixture into a cocktail shaker. Add 2 ounces of whole milk or, if you really want to go full nog, substitute half an ounce of heavy cream for 1/2 ounce of the milk. Stir in the easily dissolved sugar of your choice.

Add ice. Shake very vigorously and strain into a smallish rocks glass. Garnish with a plentiful sprinkling of ground nutmeg on the top, which should sport an appetizing froth. Add a cinnamon stick if you like — it’s probably more for presentation than flavor but it looks nice — and prepare for the elixir of the soon-to-be overweight gods.

***
Okay, so there’s a raw egg in this drink. The chances of salmonella poisoning from an egg are extremely low and you’re probably more likely to make contact with the nasty bacteria in a salad — and the salad doesn’t have any alcohol in it. However, as usual, people with compromised immune systems or other significant health issues, definitely including pregnancy, should probably stay away for a number of reasons. Of course, if you can find them, springing for pasteurized eggs is also a possibility.

And now a word about the choice of booze. Really, every kind I tried worked wonderfully. I will say that the bottle of Hennessy VS Cognac I’ve been sampling courtesy of their thoughtful PR folks was an especially refreshing version. The late Kim Il Sung might have been a murderous mad man even by dictatorial standards, but he knew his mid-priced brandy.

That being said, the sweeter whiskeys like bourbon and Canadian whisky also work nicely and it just occurs to me that Bushmills’s very light and drinkable Irish whiskey might be good, but I’m much less sure of Scotch. Bacardi light rum was good but the Whaler’s Original dark rum I used for last week’s DOTW was significantly better and I’m sure any reputable amber variety would be very decent.

I suspect this recipe would also work fine sans booze, though it will be all that much thicker and you might want to avoid the heavy cream if excessive richness is not your thing. Or, you may wan to use more ice and shake it a bit longer. I wouldn’t worry too much, it’s not easy to ruin frosty icy, aerated dairy fat and sugar with a bit of vanilla.

Happy Hanukkah, Christmas, and Atheist/Pagan Saturnalia, everyone.