Skip to main content
Drink

Roman Punch

A frothy punch made with lemon ice, sherry, rum, brandy, champagne, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Roman Punch

Why it works: Sherry and champagne share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 61 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Roman Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ice

  1. Ensure the ice is frozen hard.

Mix and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in the liquors and beat hard.

  2. Add the stiffly beaten egg whites last.

  3. The punch should be frothy and not frozen hard; it should almost pour.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sherry + champagnetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Rum + champagnetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Sherry + rumtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Rum + brandytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Brandy + champagnetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together169 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they give the punch a light, frothy texture.
Lemon ice
Provides the cold, sweet, tart base that the liquors are stirred into.
Jamaica rum
Adds strong flavour and alcohol, which lowers the freezing point so the punch stays slushy.
Brandy
Adds warm depth of flavour and alcohol that keeps the punch from freezing solid.
Sherry
Adds a rich, nutty flavour and extra alcohol to the blend.

The step that matters

Keep the punch frothy, not frozen hard. Alcohol lowers the freezing point of the mixture. If the punch freezes solid, it cannot be beaten into foam or poured, so it should stay slushy and almost pourable.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, rum, egg, brandy, champagne):

  1. Pineapplefits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, rum, egg, brandy, champagne. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Lemon WheyLemon Whey33 recipesLemon WineLemon Wine31 recipesChampagne PunchChampagne Punch24 recipesLemon SquashLemon Squash10 recipes