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Fish House Punch

A punch made with rum, brandy, water, sugar, and peach brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rum and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,058 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fish House Punch

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the rum, brandy, water, and sugar in a large bowl and stir until the sugar is fully dissolved.

  2. Add the peach brandy and mix well.

  3. Serve chilled or over ice.

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

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

  2. Rum + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together84 recipes

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

  3. Brandy + peachtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together339 recipes

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

  4. Rum + sugartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + peachtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 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

Rum
Provides the main base flavor and body of the punch.
Brandy
Adds depth and a warming, fruity aroma to the punch.
Sugar
Sweetens the punch and balances the alcohol's sharpness.
Peach brandy
Adds concentrated peach flavor and aroma to the punch.

The step that matters

Dissolve the sugar fully before adding the peach brandy. Sugar dissolves much more readily in liquid that is already mixed and, ideally, not yet cold. Undissolved crystals settle at the bottom of the bowl, leaving the punch unevenly sweet.

Swap the peach

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

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

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