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Champagne Punch

A sparkling punch made with champagne, madeira wine, citrus juice, sugar, water, and crushed ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Champagne Punch

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 ↓

Champagne Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Juice the oranges and lemon.

  2. In a large bowl, dissolve the sugar in just enough water.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the champagne and madeira wine to the bowl.

  2. Fill with crushed ice just before serving.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Champagne + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Champagne + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Champagne
Provides the sparkling base and main volume of the punch.
Madeira wine
Adds body and a rich, nutty depth to the lighter champagne.
Sugar
Sweetens the punch and balances the acidity of the citrus juice.
Oranges
Contribute juice, fragrance and bright acidity to the punch.
Lemon
Adds sharp acidity that brightens and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Fill with crushed ice just before serving. Ice dilutes the punch as it melts, and adding it early over-waters the drink and loses the champagne's fizz. Adding it last keeps the sparkle and proper strength.

“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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