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Lexington Mint Punch

A chilled mint punch made with mint, ice, sugar, vinegar or lemon juice, currant juice or jelly, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and currant work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 500 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Lexington Mint Punch

1 quart

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove bruised leaves from the mint.

  2. In a quart jar, shake crushed ice and sugar until dissolved.

  3. Add the mint and pour in cider vinegar or lemon juice.

  4. Stir in currant juice or currant jelly and add water to make one quart.

  5. If using currant jelly, reduce or omit sugar.

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.

  1. Cider + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Mint + cidertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together115 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Mint + curranttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together45 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes
  5. Sugar + cidertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and currant barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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 mint
Provides the primary aroma and fresh flavor of the punch.
Sugar
Sweetens the punch and balances the acidity of the vinegar or lemon juice.
Cider vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and sharpens the sweetness.
Currant juice or currant jelly
Adds fruity flavor and color, and contributes sweetness.

The step that matters

Dissolving the sugar in the ice. Sugar dissolves much more readily in cold liquid when it is agitated with crushed ice than when left sitting. Shaking the ice and sugar together helps it fully dissolve before the other ingredients are added, so the punch is evenly sweetened rather than gritty or sweet at the bottom.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cider, currant):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cider, currant. 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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