Name: Milk Punch
Ingredients: 1 glass fresh milk; 1 tablespoon cracked ice; 1 teaspoon sugar; 1 tablespoon whiskey

Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Milk Punch

Ingredients

1 glass fresh milk
1 tablespoon cracked ice
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon whiskey

Directions

Add fresh milk to a glass.
Stir in cracked ice, sugar, and whiskey.
Mix thoroughly and serve.

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.

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.

Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh milk: Forms the liquid base and provides creamy body and mild sweetness.
Whiskey: Adds alcohol flavour and aroma that stands out against the milk.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to balance the richness of the milk and the bite of the whiskey.
Cracked ice: Chills the drink and slightly dilutes it as it melts.

“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.