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Drink

Roman Punch Plain

A chilled lemon and orange punch with sugar, rum, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Roman Punch Plain

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Juice the lemons and orange.

  2. Combine the juice with water and sugar in a bowl.

Freeze and serve

  1. Freeze the mixture until it is very hard.

  2. Once frozen, add the rum and brandy.

  3. Mix well and serve in glasses.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  3. Orange + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  5. Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the punch and softens the icy texture by lowering the freezing point.
Lemons
Provide the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness.
Rum
Adds aroma and keeps the frozen mixture from freezing solid.
Brandy
Adds aroma and depth of flavour to the punch.

The step that matters

Freezing until very hard. Sugar and alcohol lower the freezing point, so the mixture stays partly slushy. Freezing it fully before adding the spirits and mixing well is what gives a smooth, even texture.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, sugar, rum, brandy. 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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