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Drink

Punch, Milk

A punch made with rum, lemon, orange, milk, sugar, egg whites, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 ↓

Punch, Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rind

  1. Remove the thin yellow part of the lemons and Seville orange, avoiding the white pith.

  2. Pour 1 pint of Jamaica rum over the rind and let it stand, covered, for 12 hours.

  3. Strain the liquor.

Make the punch

  1. Mix the strained liquor with 1 pint of lemon juice and 2 pints of cold water and 1 pound of dissolved sugar.

  2. Add the beaten egg whites, 3 pints of rum, grated nutmeg, 1 pint of Madeira, 1 pint of strong green tea, and ¼ pint of maraschino.

  3. Mix thoroughly and pour in 1 pint of boiling hot milk.

  4. Let the punch stand for a while.

Clarify and serve

  1. Strain it through a flannel jelly-bag until bright.

  2. Serve immediately or bottle for later use.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Rum + green teatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together60 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Their yellow peel steeped in rum supplies aromatic oils, and their juice adds sharp acidity.
Egg whites
Beaten whites help clarify the punch as they bind particles that are then strained out.
Milk
Hot milk curdles on contact with the acidic punch, carrying impurities down for clearer straining.
Refined sugar
Sugar dissolved into the liquid balances the acidity and adds sweetness.
Jamaica rum
Steeping the rind in rum extracts its aromatic oils and gives the punch its base spirit.

The step that matters

Pouring in the boiling hot milk. Hot milk curdles when it meets the acidic lemon mixture, and this curd traps cloudy particles so they can be strained out. Milk added cold or poured in too gently may not curdle properly, leaving the punch cloudy after straining.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, orange, rum, sugar, egg, green tea, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, orange, rum, sugar, egg, green tea, milk. 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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