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Punch, Hot

A warm punch made with sugar, lemon juice, boiling water, rum, brandy, and optional nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rum and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,058 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Punch, Hot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the rind of the lemon with 2-3 lumps of sugar until the yellow part is removed.

  2. Add more sugar to make a total of 4 ounces and place it in a punch bowl.

  3. Strain the lemon juice over the sugar in the punch bowl.

Mix the punch

  1. Pour in 1 pint of boiling water and stir well for 5-6 minutes.

  2. Add ¼ pint of rum and ⅓ pint of brandy, then stir again.

  3. Optionally, grate half a nutmeg for added 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. Rum + brandytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Rum + nutmegtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  5. Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the punch and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright citrus flavor to balance the sweetness.
Rum
Adds alcoholic warmth and a rich, aromatic flavor.
Brandy
Adds alcoholic warmth and fruity depth to the punch.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, rum, brandy):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Peppermintfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, rum, brandy. 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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