Southern Comfort Egg Nog

In what many of you may find an odd twist, I am about to reveal one of what my eight-year-old nephew would refer to as my "deep dark secrets": I have never had spiked egg nog.

Why is that surprising or possibly a deep dark secret? Well, I have a publicly documented love of egg nog. Also, one of the many hats I wear is that of a bartender. With both of those facts in mind, you would think that somewhere along the line I would have had the grownup version of egg nog. But nooooooooo.

And I'm not exactly making the full leap here, either. Why not? Because Southern Comfort Egg Nog, while flavored with the essence of Southern Comfort liqueur, is non-alcoholic.

But believe me, it's all good...



The scent of the egg nog is spicy. There is definitely clove and vanilla. And a little cinnamon. It smells great.

It's a super-thick drink, which is nice, as I love egg nog when it's extra thick. The flavor is very creamy...again, with plenty of clove, especially in the beginning. Then the nutmeg that you would expect in egg nog kicks in. And I love the base, it has a fantastic liquid custard taste.



I've had Southern Comfort on more than one occasion...you know, purely for professional purposes, of course. But while there was definitely a little extra somethin' somethin' to this egg nog, I don't know that if I didn't see Southern Comfort on the label that I would have guessed that's what it was supposed to be. And you know what? I don't care! This is so good that it could be thickened with reindeer snot and I would still drink it (probably in embarrassingly large amounts). It really is just that delicious.

You want this. You really do.



PURCHASED FROM:
Albertsons Supermarket

Campbell's Select Harvest Chicken with Egg Noodles Soup

So it's late fall. Thanksgiving is almost here, it's a nippy 62 degrees in Los Angeles (hey, that's nippy by local standards!) and it was dark by about 5:00 P.M. Sounds like a soup night to me! Well, tonight's soup is one from Campbell's Select Harvest line. I chose the Chicken with Egg Noodles.

The nice thing about the Select Harvest line is that it features 100% natural ingredients, no MSG (should you be trying to avoid it), and the meat -- chicken, in this case -- is roasted breast.

First thing that I liked is that the carrots, the celery, the noodles and the chicken chunks were huge. We're not talking about some teeny-tiny little shreds here; we are talking serious chunks. It really made the soup look homemade.



There are some other noticeable differences between this Chicken with Egg Noodles and the classic Campbell's Chicken Noodle (or even the Chunk Healthy Request Chicken Noodle).

The first is the broth. It's a little thicker. The chicken also seems leaner and more like what would be found in a homemade soup. It's a little dry...but I personally like my chicken dry, so that's perfectly fine with me.



The broth overall has a taste that I can best call "roasty." Yeah, there's some sage in there (or something that tastes like sage -- the ingredients list includes "spice," but it doesn't specify which ones). There's also a little onion. But the strongest flavor just seems to be essence of roast. In theory, roasted chicken -- but it's not a complex enough flavor that I could really say for sure. It overpowers everything to the point that "roasted" is really the only thing you can taste.

The noodles were good, perfectly tender, and there's a very generous portion of them. I am sure that egg noodles are what my bubbe would have used...if I had a bubbe, that is. (My grandmother made clam sauce, not soup!)

But while I really liked the big chunks and the quality of the ingredients, I can honestly say I prefer the taste of classic Chicken Noodle or the Chunky Healthy Request Chicken with Noodles. If you like that "roasty" flavor, you may love this one. Sadly, I really didn't care for it.



PURCHASED FROM:
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