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Roman Punch

A chilled citrus punch with rum, sherry, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Roman Punch

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 ↓

Roman Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Juice the lemons and orange, then combine the juice with the water and sugar in a large bowl.

  2. Freeze the mixture until very hard.

Finish and serve

  1. Once frozen, add the rum, sherry, and brandy.

  2. Serve in glasses.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + sherrytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together146 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. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Orange + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Provide the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, by lowering the freezing point, keeps the punch slushy rather than solid ice.
Rum
Adds aroma and flavor, and its alcohol keeps the frozen mixture softer when served.
Brandy
Adds aroma and warmth, and its alcohol keeps the frozen mixture from freezing fully hard.
Sherry
Adds depth and nutty, aromatic flavor to the punch.

The step that matters

Freeze the mixture until very hard. Freezing the juice and sugar mixture to a solid, then adding the spirits after, creates the base's texture. The alcohol added later slightly lowers the freezing point, so the mixture softens into a slush when stirred or served.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, sugar, rum, sherry, 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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