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Fine Milk Punch

A punch made with lemon rind steeped in brandy or rum, sugar, nutmeg, water, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Fine Milk Punch

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fine Milk Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the yellow rind from the lemons and steep it in 1 quart of brandy or rum for 24 hours.

  2. Mix in the juice of the lemons, 1 ½ pounds of loaf sugar, 2 grated nutmegs, and 1 quart of water.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat 1 quart of rich unskimmed milk until boiling, then add it to the mixture.

  2. Strain the entire mixture through a jelly bag.

  3. Serve cold or bottle for later use; it will keep for several months.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Brandy + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Their juice and rind supply the acidity and bright citrus aroma of the punch.
Brandy or rum
Acts as the spirit base that extracts lemon oil and gives the punch its body and keeping quality.
Loaf sugar
Balances the acidity of the lemon with sweetness and rounds out the alcohol.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour that complements the citrus and dairy.
Rich unskimmed milk
Adds fat and creaminess, softening the sharp, alcoholic bite of the spirit.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling milk to the mixture. Milk curdles when acid and hot milk meet. Heating the milk and adding it to the acidic mixture is what clears the punch as curds form and are removed by straining; the step is key to a clear, smooth result.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (brandy, sugar, nutmeg, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar, nutmeg, milk. 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.

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