We wish you a dairy Christmas: eggnog

To online gaming enthusiasts, eggnog is a virtual elixir found in World of Warcraft that can briefly transform your avatar into an animated reindeer or a stationary snowman.

To everyone else it's a tasty holiday vessel that transports rum to your lips.

The festive carton of goodness usually appears next to the boring milk sometime in early November, but many don't partake right away.

I witnessed a handful of conversations about the seemingly rigid rules surrounding eggnog intake this week. People were buying it, but masochistically denying themselves the pleasure of drinking it until December 1.

This bizarre behaviour caused me to perform an all-evening Googlefest on eggnog.

Some strange and amusing things you should know about eggnog:

• The history of the name appears to be somewhat contentious, but most reputable sources (Wikipedia, websites hosted by Angelfire with seizure-inducing Christmas animations) say it comes from the term "egg-and-grog" which eventually got shortened to eggnog. Translation: people were too drunk from the rum and couldn't say egg-and-grog.

• If you're feeling guilty after consuming the fattening beverage, you can do the Egg Nog Jog, a scenic, 10k race in Ontario in mid-December. Fun for the whole family!

• In the science world there's something called eggNOG 2.0 and it means evolutionary genealogy of genes: non-supervised orthologous groups. That's all I know about it. I found this near the end of my search, started yawning after the overload of scientific words and promptly went to sleep.

• There are vegan equivalents of eggnog. One is a soy product called Silk Nog. My father swears you'd never be able to tell difference. He also claims carob is a valid substitute for chocolate.

• There are 450 calories in a grande eggnog latte from Starbucks. There are 0 grams of fiber.

• Picture it. West Point military academy. 1826. When the young prisoners were informed there would be no eggnog that Christmas, they went all Martha Stewart and made their own. They drank too much of their spiked concoction and started a riot.

• Both yellowpages.com and canada411.com confirm there is no one living in the United States or Canada with the last name "Eggnog."
  

• If you're travelling in Eastern Europe and find yourself craving eggnog, ask for kogel mogel. If they don't comply, fly to Mexico and order a rompope. If that doesn't work, go back home. You've wasted too much money trying to find exotic eggnog.

And last but not least, apparently eggnog freezes well, so make a stockpile in your deep freezer and bust a carton out in July. Nothing is quite so refreshing on a 30-degree day as a glass of thick and creamy beaten eggs.