Name: Ginger Ale Punch
Ingredients: Juice of 6 lemons; Juice of 6 oranges; 2 quart bottles of ginger ale; 1 pint of champagne; Sugar syrup to taste; 1 large piece of ice; Thin slices of lemon; Thin slices of orange

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 ↓

Ginger Ale Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Juice the lemons and oranges into a large bowl.
Add the ginger ale and champagne to the juice.
Sweeten the mixture with sugar syrup to taste.
Add a large piece of ice to the punch.
Garnish with thin slices of lemon and orange.

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Orange + gingertop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,833 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,154 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Orange + champagnetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together260 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemon juice: Adds acidity that balances the sugar and brightens the flavour.
Orange juice: Adds fruity sweetness and body to the punch.
Ginger ale: Provides carbonation and a gingery aroma that lifts the drink.
Champagne: Adds more carbonation and a dry, wine-like lightness.
Sugar syrup: Sweetens the punch to balance the acidity of the citrus.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, orange, champagne, sugar, syrup):

Cinnamonfits better
Gingerthe original
Peppermintfits about as well
Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, orange, champagne, sugar, syrup. 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.