Skip to main content
Drink

Victoria or 32 D Regiment Punch

A citrusy punch made with lemon peel, rum, brandy, sugar, water, and boiling milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Victoria or 32 D Regiment Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the punch

  1. Steep the lemon peel in 2 quarts of rum for 36 hours.

  2. Pour the lemon juice over 3.5 pounds of loaf sugar.

  3. Add 2 quarts of brandy and 7 quarts of cold water; mix well.

  4. Gradually add 2 quarts of boiling milk while stirring.

  5. Let the mixture stand for 4 hours.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain it 2 or 3 times through a flannel jelly bag until clear.

  2. Bottle and cork tightly.

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

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

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

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

  4. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Brandy + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemon peel
Releases aromatic oils into the rum, giving the punch its citrus fragrance and flavour.
Rum
Provides the base spirit, carrying the peel's aroma and adding warmth and body.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the lemon juice.
Brandy
Adds further spirit body and depth of flavour to the punch.
Boiling milk
Coagulates and binds fine particles so they can be strained out, clearing the liquid.

The step that matters

Gradually adding the boiling milk while stirring. Hot milk curdles on contact with the acidic punch, forming clumps that trap sediment. Adding it slowly while stirring keeps the curds small and even, so straining can produce a clear liquid.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

Lemon WheyLemon Whey33 recipesLemon WineLemon Wine31 recipesLemon SquashLemon Squash10 recipesLemon EssenceLemon Essence8 recipes