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Punch, for Hot Weather

A mint and brandy punch served over pounded ice with pineapple garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 168 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Punch, for Hot Weather

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the mint sprigs in a large tumbler.

  2. Sprinkle the sugar over the mint.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill the tumbler a third of the way with equal parts peach brandy and French brandy.

  2. Add enough pounded ice to fill the tumbler.

  3. Rub the rim of the tumbler with a slice of fresh pineapple.

  4. Enjoy the drink as the ice melts.

  5. If brandy is unavailable, substitute with sherry and gin, and add orange rind for flavor.

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. Peach + pineappletop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together168 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Brandy + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Peach + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together385 recipes

    Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh mint
Adds aromatic herbal fragrance that perfumes the drink.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily to add sweetness and balance the alcohol.
Peach brandy
Provides fruity flavor and alcoholic body to the punch.
French brandy
Adds a base spirit with warm, dry grape flavor.
Pounded ice
Chills the drink and slowly dilutes it as it melts.

Swap the orange

The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mint, sugar, peach, brandy, pineapple, sherry, gin):

  1. Apricotfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mint, sugar, peach, brandy, pineapple, sherry, gin. 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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