Skip to main content
Drink

English Claret Cup

A chilled beverage made with claret, soda water, water, sugar, lemon, cucumber, mint, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,998 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

English Claret Cup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the punch

  1. Combine the claret, soda water, and water in a large pitcher.

  2. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved.

  3. Slice the lemon and cucumber, then add them to the mixture.

Serve

  1. Add the fresh mint and ice just before serving.

  2. Serve chilled.

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. Lemon + minttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Cucumber + minttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Lemon + cucumbertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + cucumbertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,112 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Claret
Provides the wine base and main flavour of the punch.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the wine's acidity and tannins.
Soda water
Adds carbonation, giving the punch lightness and sparkle.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright citrus aroma to the punch.

The step that matters

Add the mint and ice just before serving. Mint releases its aroma and oils quickly, and soda loses its fizz over time. Adding them late keeps the punch fragrant and sparkling rather than flat and bitter-tasting from long steeping.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Cucumberthe original
  2. Arrowrootfits about as well
  3. Kalefits less well
  4. Broccolifits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, mint. 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 recipesCucumber PicklesCucumber Pickles25 recipesLemon SquashLemon Squash10 recipes