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Drink

Sportsman's Punch

A punch made with water, sugar, lemon, whiskey, brandy, and hot ale.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sportsman's Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the water and sugar together.

  2. Add the thin rind and strained juice of half a lemon.

  3. Pour the syrup into a hot jug.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the whiskey and cold brandy.

  2. Finally, add the boiling hot old ale and serve at once.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + brandytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lump sugar
Dissolves into the boiling water to form a sweet syrup base.
Whiskey
Provides the main alcoholic strength and warming body of the punch.
Old pale brandy
Adds aromatic depth and smoothness alongside the whiskey.
Old ale
Contributes malty flavour and body to the punch.
Lemon
Its juice adds acidity to balance the sweetness, and its rind adds aroma.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling hot old ale last. Hot ale added at the end keeps the punch warm and serving-ready. Adding it too early, or letting the mixture cool, can drive off alcohol aroma and leave the drink flat.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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