Eggnog has long been a staple of the holiday season for me. When I was growing up, my parents would pile all of us into the van, pour everyone some eggnog and we’d drive around looking at Christmas lights.

Writing that sentence, I now realize that it’s probably because we were very poor and couldn’t afford Christmas lights, much less a tree. In fact, the first (and only) Christmas tree I remember us having when I was still living at home was made out of a TV Guide that I folded up to make a tree shape, then spray-painted green, sort of like this: bydreamsfactory.com/diy-folde…

But I digress. Since eggnog and the Christmas season are linked together so strongly for me, I’ve always made sure to grab some when I’m in a grocery store around the holidays. I always liked the thought of eggnog more than the flavor, but I still drank it for sentimental reasons. I’ve tried a lot of different brands over the years, and I never found one that I truly loved until a few years ago, when I spotted the Organic Valley brand of eggnog in Whole Foods. I immediately loved that one, as it wasn’t cloying, wasn’t too heavy on the nutmeg, and it didn’t have the fake, almost butterscotchy flavor that many brands have. I usually ended up buying 3-4 cartons each holiday season.

And then the pandemic hit, and supply chains were stretched thin. In 2021, Organic Valley eggnog was gone from shelves, due to a butterfat shortage. In 2022, it was still gone, but they promised that the eggnog would be back.

This year, it showed up! Kind of. Now it’s bad. Organic Valley decided that this year, they’d make their eggnog in a new reduced fat version (presumably because there’s still a butterfat shortage). Reduced fat isn’t what you want to be drinking at the holidays.

This new eggnog is watery and not as good as the original. It’s getting a lot of one-star reviews on their website from people who had it before and are very upset with the changes.

I tried it myself, and it’s definitely not as good.

But then I discovered that at some point, Organic Valley posted an eggnog recipe on their website. It uses heavy cream and whole milk, so I tried making it. It was really easy to make, and it’s just as delicious as the stuff they used to make.

I’ll probably just do that every year now, unless they bring back the good stuff.