Clover Sonoma in Petaluma ramps up eggnog production for holidays

Shortly after 8 last Thursday evening, as Petalumans finished doing their dinner dishes and otherwise settled in for the night, the action was just starting at the Clover Sonoma milk plant on Lakeville Street.

A “run” of half-gallon whole milk was just finishing, production supervisor Ian Benedetti said. Up next: the star of the show. Another batch of the company’s storied eggnog was about to begin.

For at least half a century, Clover Sonoma, and Clover Stornetta Farms before it, has been making eggnog this time of year. From mid-October to the end of December, Clover will make 140,000 gallons: 75,000 gallons of it organic for $6.99 a quart, the rest “conventional” and $2 a quart cheaper. Creamy and subtly sweet, it has become a beloved holiday staple in Sonoma County for many.

At Clover’s plant Thursday night a freshly mixed batch of organic eggnog was injected into quart-sized cartons, sealed and — following a winding journey on a conveyor belt — lowered, 16 at a time, into the company’s familiar green crates. The nog was then shuttled 3 miles east, to Clover’s distribution center, and transported on trucks festooned with the company’s ebullient bovine mascot Clo to grocers’ dairy cases all over California.

Before entering the Petaluma production area, a reporter and photographer had their temperatures taken, before donning plastic personal protection equipment, safety glasses and hair nets. Speaking of hair nets, Ian Benedetti, a cousin of Clover CEO and Chairman Marcus Benedetti, said that “sometimes I forget I have mine on. I’ll wear it home, or wear it to the store, and people think I’m nuts.”

Outside, in a receiving bay beneath four gleaming 50,000-gallon silos erected in 2016, a silver tanker truck offloaded milk from several of the 29 family owned farms in Marin and Sonoma counties which sell exclusively to Clover.

Organic milk destined to become eggnog is piped to a batching room to be mixed with organic ingredients such as sugar, egg yolks, nutmeg, tumeric (for color) and gellan gum. The latter holds together the spices, so they don’t separate, said Kristel Corson, Clover’s chief revenue officer.

Once the organic eggnog run ended, a second batch, this one of Clover’s new caramel sea salt organic version, was scheduled. Asked if that specialty nog seemed a bit busy — if it seemed like one too many notes — Ian Benedetti admitted “that’s what I worried about, at first.”

After tasting the caramel nog, as it is known, he was won over. The flavors are subtle, he said, not overwhelming.

As the nog sits in the carton, “the flavors integrate; they come out a little more. It’s like wine in that respect,” said Corson, sounding a bit like a sommelier. Or, in this case, so-MOO-lier.

Walking through ankle-high islands of sanitizing foot foam, Benedetti pointed to the pasteurizing equipment, and a homogenizer, whose piston-like pumps force the liquid through small holes, “applying an insane amount of pressure,” he said. That process breaks down fat globules in the beverage, ensuring that it doesn’t separate in the container.

Workers nearby loaded flattened cartons onto a magazine that in a matter of seconds unfolded them, then loaded them onto a machine that sealed the bottom of the quart-sized containers, filled them with eggnog, sealed them, then sent them in the direction of the “caser.”

During the old days at Stornetta Dairy, according to a story told by Marcus Benedetti, it was Al Stornetta’s tradition to concoct one very special batch of eggnog each holiday season. For that batch, he would mix 500 gallons of eggnog with 30 gallons of whiskey.

Packaged in special cartons, the “Brandied Eggnog” was given to customers, chefs and other VIPs. It was discontinued 40 years ago, after some of the spiked eggnog was mistakenly placed in the dairy case at Vallergas Market in Napa.

Even though it wasn’t supposed to be on sale, an elderly woman bought a quart of that hopped-up nog and enjoyed it immensely. A fortnight later, she returned for more. But the second quart she purchased contained no brandy. The woman came back to the store the next day to complain. She’d really liked that first quart. Where could she find more of that?

A strong argument could be made, at the end of this year marked by a pandemic, wildfires and political turmoil, to bring back “Brandied Eggnog.” Instead, customers can find Clover’s unspiked version at their local grocery store. What they pour into it once they get home is their business.

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at 707-521-5214 or austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.