Skip to main content
Drink

Norfolk Punch

A large citrus punch made with rum or brandy, sugar, egg whites, orange juice, and milk, steeped and aged.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Norfolk Punch

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 ↓

Norfolk Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Steep the pulp of the lemons and oranges in the rum or brandy for 24 hours.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar in 6 gallons of water with the beaten egg whites. Skim off any scum.

  2. Once cold, combine the sugar mixture with the steeped rum, orange juice, and milk. Shake the vessel to mix.

Age and bottle

  1. Seal it tightly. Let it stand for 2 months before bottling.

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

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

  2. Rum + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together967 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Orange + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 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. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Their proteins coagulate when boiled, collecting impurities so they can be skimmed off, clarifying the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the punch and balances the acidity of the citrus and juice.
Milk
Its proteins bind with the acidic citrus and juice, softening the punch and mellowing its sharpness.
Lemons
Supply acidity and aromatic oils from the pulp and peel steeped in the spirit.
Oranges
Add sweet-sour citrus flavour and aroma from the steeped pulp and juice.

The step that matters

Skim off any scum. Scum from the boiling syrup carries impurities that would cloud the punch and spoil its flavour, so it must be removed fully before the syrup is combined with the other ingredients.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits about as well
  3. Orangethe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, rum, sugar, egg, 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.

You might also like

Orange SyrupOrange Syrup47 recipesLemon WheyLemon Whey33 recipesLemon WineLemon Wine31 recipesOrange Water IceOrange Water Ice28 recipes