I was in Bristol Farms in El Segundo seven years ago and decide to buy some eggnog. But the checker had other ideas.

"Oh no. You can't buy this," she said, regarding my carton of run-of-the-mill eggnog with undisguised contempt. She told me to put the eggnog back and then would show me the kind I had to buy. The checker led me over to a refrigerator stocked entirely with gleaming glass bottles of eggnog.

Broguiere's eggnog.

"Once you have this," she promised me with the fervor of the convert, "you'll never drink another kind of eggnog."

Brother, was she ever right. Broguiere's has forever ruined me for every other brand of the nog. And speaking as a guy for whom the holiday season has always been synonymous with "I can drink eggnog now!", that's saying something.

Broguiere's is to mere mortal eggnogs what Cristal champagne is to Cook's. Only more so.

The primary drawback to acquiring the Broguiere's habit is the stuff isn't easy to find. Most grocery stores -- even those that carry Broguiere's milk -- don't stock it. Those that do usually order insufficient quantities and thus quickly sell out.

The high-end, hoity-toity places markets Bristol Farms, however, never run out. I stop by the Pacific Ranch Market in whenever I'm in east Orange and score three or four bottles at a time.

There's always the dairy itself. I recently introduced a friend of mine to Broguiere's eggnog, and he's spent the last couple of Saturday mornings driving up to the dairy in Montebello to snag some bottle of this sweet nectar of Christmas.

So if you're a fan of eggnog and want to taste the best the genus has to offer, you can call Broguiere's Farm Fresh Dairy at 323-726-0524 and see if they can direct you to a location near you that carries the champagne of eggnogs.