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Rum Punch with Fruit

A fruit punch made with rum, citrus, pineapple, strawberries, tea, sherry, and soda water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Rum Punch with Fruit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the oranges, lemons, and pineapple.

Macerate and serve

  1. In a large bowl, combine the rum, sliced fruit, strawberries, sugar, strong tea, and sherry. Mix well and let sit for several hours before serving.

  2. When ready to serve, add a chunk of ice and the soda water or Apollonaris.

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

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

  2. Rum + pineappletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Rum + sherrytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Pineapple + sherrytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together228 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

Rum
Provides the main spirit base and characteristic flavour of the punch.
Sugar
Sweetens the punch and balances the acidity of the citrus and tea.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the punch and balances its sweetness.
Strong tea
Adds tannin and a subtle bitter depth that balances the sweetness.
Soda water
Adds carbonation, lightness and a fizzy texture when served.

The step that matters

Letting the punch sit for several hours. Steeping the fruit in the alcohol and sugar draws flavour and aroma from the peel and pulp into the liquid. Adding the soda water too early would lose its carbonation, so it is added only at serving.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rum, orange, sugar, pineapple, tea, sherry):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rum, orange, sugar, pineapple, tea, sherry. 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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