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Mint Punch

A chilled mint and lemon beverage with ice and ginger ale.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mint and lemon 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 ↓

Mint Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mint syrup

  1. Finely chop the mint and combine it with 1 cup of sugar and the juice of 2 lemons in a bowl.

  2. Mash thoroughly and let it stand for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Assemble and serve

  1. Strain the mixture and add the juice of 4 more lemons, 1 pint of syrup, the sliced yellow rind of 2 lemons, and some freshly cut mint.

  2. Stir well and just before serving, add 1 quart of shaved ice and 2 quarts of ginger ale.

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. Mint + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  3. Mint + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Syrup + gingertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together950 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mint
Supplies the main aroma and fresh herbal flavor of the punch.
Sugar
Sweetens the punch and helps draw flavor out of the chopped mint.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the punch.
Ginger ale
Adds sweetness, ginger flavor, and carbonation for lightness.
Shaved ice
Chills the punch and dilutes it slightly as it melts.

The step that matters

Add the ginger ale just before serving. Ginger ale is carbonated, and its bubbles escape steadily once opened or mixed. Adding it last, after the syrup is already prepared, keeps the punch fizzy and stops the ice from melting into a flat, watery drink.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. Mintthe original

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

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