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Bishop Oxford Nightcap

A spiced port wine punch made with cloves, mace, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, roasted lemon, sugar, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Bishop Oxford Nightcap

Ingredients

Directions

Make the spiced infusion

  1. Boil cloves, mace, ginger, cinnamon, and allspice in water for 30 minutes, then strain.

Make the punch

  1. In a saucepan, heat part of the port wine and add the spiced infusion and the roasted lemon.

  2. Grate the lemon rind and place it in a punch bowl with the sugar and lemon juice.

  3. Pour in the hot wine mixture and the remaining port, then serve.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Port wine
Provides the main body, sweetness and fruity flavour of the punch.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, spiced port.
Cloves
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the infusion.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, port wine, lemon, sugar):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, port wine, lemon, sugar. 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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