Beekeeping group adds a sweet touch to the eggnog competition in Arkansas

Little Rock, Arkansas – In downtown Little Rock on Friday, the 19th Ever Nog Off! competition was held to find the greatest eggnog in the area.

According to Ellen Korenblat, director of community engagement at the Historic Arkansas Museum, the competition’s host, eggnog has a long history in the Natural State.

“We have documentation of the person who lived on our grounds in this brick building out here, coming, and the very first thing he had when he got to Arkansas when he came over from Scotland was a glass of eggnog,” Korenblat said.

According to Korenblat, the amicable rivalry began when local families fought over who had the greatest eggnog recipe and what components went into it.

According to Korenblat, there have been many variations of eggnog over the years.

“So we had a firefly chai eggnog, we’ve had ice cream, we’ve had eggnog popsicles before,” she said. “We had to create a category for unconventional economics.”

Owner of Calm + Confidence Beekeeping Lauren Anderson stated that her company intended to develop a new recipe this year that customers might test, pointing out the health advantages of local honey.

“We’ve gone through about four different iterations of small batches to try to create something unique where you can taste the honey but it still rings true of true eggnog,” Anderson said.

In Little Rock, Anderson’s team looks after one hundred hives, including one atop the Historic Arkansas Museum.

She mentioned that they used three separate hives to make their eggnog.

We love that just using our honey here from the city made a great recipe and that we didn’t need to add anything,” Anderson said. “People didn’t want all the extra bells and whistles, just letting the honey speak for itself.”