Hellmann’s ‘mayo-nog’ is the holiday drink no one asked for
A whole genre of recipes rests on the premise of sneaking vegetables into food, usually to get children to unwittingly consume something healthy. Parents everywhere seem to be lacing brownies with pureed spinach or passing off mashed cauliflower as potato.
The point of such culinary subterfuge is to encourage nutritious eating, of course, but the volumes written on the topic underscore the fact that it’s actually pretty easy to trick people into consuming something they might think is gross, or at least wrong, given the context. That seems to be the operating principle behind “mayo-nog,” the Christmas drink that the deranged elves at Hellmann’s are pushing this holiday season.
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The company this month posted a recipe for the concoction on Instagram. Other than the quarter-cup of mayonnaise, it’s a fairly standard combination of milk, cream, simple syrup and three types of booze, mixed up in a blender. It hailed the drink as a “wild new way to transform your rich and creamy Hellmann’s Mayo into a magical holiday treat.” (It featured the drink alongside similarly mayo-spiked glazed snickerdoodle cookies.) The company also announced that the cocktail, which it developed with the hospitality company Muddling Memories, would be available for a limited time at a bar in Manhattan.
The very name, “mayo-nog,” induces cognitive dissonance. Mayonnaise is salty and savory. It’s for tuna salads and cheeseburgers. Eggnog, on the other hand, is sweet and boozy, an accompaniment to visions of dancing sugarplums and holiday cookies and cinnamon sticks. Their unlikely portmanteau is all but certain to trip the wires of mayo-haters, a vocal subset of folks who find the stuff vile — and that’s before you combine it with three types of liquor and a bunch of nutmeg.
Although it’s difficult to wrap one’s brain around the mash-up, if you really consider it, eggnog actually isn’t a big stretch for mayo. The condiment is made up of eggs and fat, which are some of the main components of a good nog, after all. (Beloved recipes for chocolate cake made with mayo operate on this same principle.) Maybe this alliance wasn’t as unholy as it might have seemed at first? To test it out, I tried both the restaurant’s version and the recipe at home — the former because I happened to be in New York while it was on offer. At Amy Fontaine’s, a cheerfully wallpapered Midtown East watering hole, I ordered the “Mayo-nog” with trepidation. “Have lots of people been ordering them?” I asked the bartender. “Actually, you’re my first,” she gamely replied. I didn’t ask how long she’d been there.
Yes, Hellmann’s has frozen over. Mayonnaise ice cream is here.
The drink arrived in a glass mug, looking just like a normal eggnog might: foamy, flecked with spices and garnished with an aggressive heap of cinnamon. I hesitantly took a sip, but the mayonnaise was nowhere to be tasted. I sipped, scanning my palate for any giveaway that I was guzzling a substance I usually put in potato salad. It remained elusive, masked by everything else going on in the drink: The creaminess of the dairy, the chill of the ice, the heavy dose of baking spices and the overwhelming sweetness all took center stage at this holiday show. The drink left a slightly slick feeling in my mouth, but I swear to Santa that I wouldn’t have guessed the not-so-secret ingredient if I didn’t know better.
The problem with it wasn’t the mayo, I decided, but merely that it wasn’t a great eggnog. I prefer mine unfrozen, for one thing — I like my blender drinks in the summer, and it’s easier to keep a batch of non-frozen nog in the refrigerator for visiting friends. The sweetness and cold also masked the sharpness of the liquors — in this case, bourbon, apple brandy and cognac — which is a feature I enjoy in my festive holiday quaffs.
The results I got at home were almost identical, although I dialed back the cinnamon garnish to a light dusting. I drank it by the fire and considered other ways to improve it. I’d reduce the amount of simple syrup, pour it over ice instead of blending it … and, heck, I’d skip the Hellmann’s and just beat some eggs myself. I like a nog with nothing to hide.
