Nog For Your Noggin -- The Bullitt Sisters Know How To Make Everyone Jolly

Dec 20, 1992

John Hinterberger

THE FIRST TIME I drank the Bullitt sisters' eggnog, I'll admit to a moment of courteous condescension. I don't normally drink eggnog. I typically find it too sweet, too dessert-like and, usually, too weak or too strong.

But this batch did look good, reposing there in a large crystal punchbowl near the burnished wood entry of the Stimson-Green mansion. And since Harriet Bullitt and her sister Patsy Collins were standing by, serving the eggnog to about 60 or so holiday party guests from their radio station, Classic KING, I thought it impolite to decline.

I picked up the little mug and sipped.

Ye gods and little fishes, I opined, this stuff is magic. Smooth as white racing silks, rich as Ross Perot and just potent enough to cut through the richness with a keen and mellow alcoholic edge.

I asked Patsy for the recipe.

"I'd be happy to give it to you," she said. "But I'm not sure you want it. People often ask for it - and later I regret giving it to them. Unless you are very careful with it, it doesn't turn out. In fact, it becomes a mess, and they are unhappy with me for having given it to them in the first place.

"You see, it's not the ingredients. It's the method. There is no secret. But if you don't do it exactly the way it's supposed to be done, it won't turn out. And most people aren't willing to take the time to do it right."

What are the ingredients? I asked her, holding out my cup for a refill.

"The major ingredients are patience and endurance," she said.

As it turned out (and it did), she wasn't kidding.

The Bullitt family eggnog recipe goes back to 1912.

"Most people assume it was handed down from my mother, Dorothy," she said. "But it wasn't. The recipe actually was my father's - Scott Bullitt's - and it was given to him at a place in Louisville, Ken., called the Pendennis Club."

Scott Bullitt was from Kentucky, she continued, and as a young man - a bachelor - was a member of that club.

"The Pendennis Club was for handsome, single young men," she said. "What you might call men-about-town. Working at the club was a musically talented young black man, Roland Hayes, who was a waiter. He had a wonderful singing voice.

"The members of the club decided to pitch in and provide him with a classical music education. Which they did. He went on to study in Europe and became internationally famous as a leading tenor - the first black person to do so. He was, in a sense, breaking ground for Paul Robeson and Marion Anderson."

"It was Roland Hayes who gave the recipe to my father."

I would give it to you. For reasons cited below, I can't. At least not fully and in its 1912 details.

I will tell you this much: The batter for Roland Hayes' eggnog has to "age," or ripen, for a minimum of 48 hours.

THE APPROACH TO drinking eggnog is the same for all versions: Sip slowly and moderately. The drink tends to linger: in the body, in the mind. The Bullitts' has been called famous by some and infamous by most.

Ancil Payne, the retired former CEO at King Broadcasting, recalled:

"They (the sisters) always said there was no `secret' about it - and there wasn't, except that it had a great deal of mystery about it. And the fact that they made it in the middle of the night when there was no one else around.

"And the recipe was locked up in that safe she (Dorothy) had in the Little Brick House. It was a stiff drink. We use to serve it in (television) Studio B, and my greatest fear was that somebody would spill some and it would eat holes in the concrete floor and the cameras wouldn't be able to roll around. The annual Christmas Party and the eggnog became a very, very big thing.

"When the management changed and it was decided not to serve alcohol in the studio, they brought in (non-alcoholic) store-bought eggnog in cartons and the employees almost had fits. I thought we were going to have a riot."

Because of a stern - and prudent - Seattle Times prohibition against printing any recipe involving the use of raw eggs, I can't divulge the complete details here. There is a way to make "safe," American Egg Board-approved eggnog. That recipe is on page 17.

In 1912 few such concerns were raised, although quite a few glasses were. But here are most of the rest of the ingredients:

A pound of granulated sugar.

A quart of brandy.

Ten ounces of rum.

Freshly grated nutmeg.

And, "you won't believe this," Patsy Collins laughed: "A half-gallon of whipping cream. Not a half-gallon of whipped cream; a half-gallon of WHIPPING cream."

She doesn't try to multiply it. It becomes too cumbersome. If she's planning to serve a larger crowd, Patsy makes more batches.

"Last year's radio-station party drank five batches," she confided.

Harriet Bullitt's version uses bourbon, she said, "because it was from Kentucky and it always seemed to me that it should. I know we are all very careful about the use of raw eggs and all that, but the batter keeps remarkably well. You know, I've had it hanging around in my refrigerator for a year - in a jar, of course."

I can't begin to compute the calories per cup, but I urge you to guard your concrete floors from a bibulous slosh.

To make a worry-free eggnog, all you have to do is to SLOWLY precook the beaten eggs or egg yolk, combined with sugar and milk or cream, until the mixture thickens (at 160 degrees) and then refrigerate until ready to combine with the other ingredients.

----------------------- CLASSIC COOKED EGGNOG ----------------------- 6 eggs. 1/4 cup sugar. 1/4 teaspoon salt, optional. 1 quart milk. 1 teaspoon vanilla. Garnishes or stir-ins, optional.

1. In a large saucepan, beat together eggs, sugar and salt if desired. Stir in two cups of the milk. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is thick enough to coat a metal spoon with a thin film and reaches at least 160 degrees. 2. Remove from heat. Stir in remaining two cups of milk and vanilla. Cover and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, several hours or overnight. Just before serving, pour into bowl or pitcher. Garnish or add stir-ins (alcohol, fruits slices, etc.) and, says the Egg Board, serve "immediately."

But not to Classic KING radio employees.