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Drink

Regent's Punch

A citrus and tea punch with rum, brandy, arrack, pineapple syrup, champagne, and seltzer water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Regent's Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Combine the rinds of the lemons and oranges in a bowl.

  2. Pour ½ pound of boiled sugar‑candy syrup over the rinds and let infuse for 1 hour.

  3. Add 1 pint of cold strong green tea and the strained juice of the fruit.

Blend and chill

  1. Stir in 1 glass each of rum, brandy, arrack, and pineapple syrup.

  2. Add 2 bottles of champagne and 1 bottle of seltzer water.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine cloth until clear.

  4. Bottle immediately and chill in ice for 1‑2 hours before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve in a bowl or jug.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Rum + brandytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Green tea + rumtop 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

Sugar-candy
Dissolves into the syrup to sweeten the punch and balance the citrus acidity.
Lemon and orange rinds
Infused into the syrup, they release aromatic oils that flavour the punch.
Champagne
Adds carbonation and a light, bright sparkle to the finished punch.
Green tea
Contributes mild tannin and a subtle bitterness that adds depth against the sweetness.

The step that matters

Bottle immediately and chill. Carbonation from the champagne and seltzer escapes once the punch sits open, so it should be bottled right away and kept very cold to stay lively.

Swap the bitter orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Bitter orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, orange, sugar, green tea, rum, brandy, pineapple. 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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