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Drink

Punch a LA Francaise

A rum and citrus punch flavored with tea and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

Punch a LA Francaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rum base

  1. In a saucepan, combine 1 liter of rum and 750 grams of sugar. Burn the sugar until it turns brown and reduces by one-third.

  2. Add 1 liter of boiling tea and the juice of 6 citrons and 6 oranges. Serve immediately.

Make the ladies' punch

  1. For the ladies' punch, melt 2 lbs of sugar in a large saucepan over heat.

  2. Pour ½ cup of water or tea over the melted sugar, then add the juice of 2 lemons and 2 oranges.

  3. Once the sugar is melted, add 1 bottle of rum, 1 bottle of brandy, and enough tea to adjust the strength.

  4. Warm the mixture without boiling. Just before serving, strain the juice of 6 oranges into the punch.

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. Orange + lemontop 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. Tea + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together610 recipes

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

  4. Tea + orangetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together333 recipes

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

  5. Rum + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 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 spirit base and aroma of the punch.
Sugar
Sweetens the punch and, when burned, adds brown color and caramel flavor.
Brandy
Adds depth and warmth to the spirit base of the ladies' punch.
Citrons
Adds sharp acidity and fresh citrus aroma to the punch.
Oranges
Adds sweetness, acidity and citrus aroma to the punch.

The step that matters

Warm the mixture without boiling. Boiling drives off alcohol and aromatic citrus volatiles and can make the juice taste cooked and bitter, so keep the punch just warm.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rum, sugar, tea, orange, 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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