A light take on eggnog using apple brandy and apple cider instead of cream and egg.

Think Christmas and eggnog springs to mind for a lot of people. We're not fans of the thick cream and egg combination so when researching recipes, we came across this one on Diffordsguide called General Harrison's Nogg which in turn had been contributed by cocktail legend Dale Degroff. It's a good way to use your Christmas brandy too but being without that specialised Perlini shaker that is called for, we adapted it somewhat by making the cocktail without the cider then floating the cider on top - still tastes delicious and a good one to try!

Ingredients

• 45ml Charles Oates Distilling apple brandy 

• 15 ml simple syrup

• 1 egg

• 2 dashes bitters (we didn't have the pimento bitters called for but substituted it with some aromatic bitters)

• Apple cider

Shake all ingredients (except the cider) over ice for a good 1-2 minutes. Strain into glass then top up with about 60ml cider.

Dust with nutmeg over the top.