Name: Whiskey Punch
Ingredients: 1 heaping tablespoon sugar; ⅓ cup hot or cold water; small ring of lemon rind; 1 tablespoon lemon juice (optional); ⅓ cup whiskey; additional hot or cold water to taste

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 ↓

Whiskey Punch

Ingredients

1 heaping tablespoon sugar
⅓ cup hot or cold water
small ring of lemon rind
1 tablespoon lemon juice (optional)
⅓ cup whiskey
additional hot or cold water to taste

Directions

Dissolve the sugar in the hot or cold water.
Add the thinly cut lemon rind and lemon juice if desired.
Pour in the whiskey and add more water to taste.
Serve and enjoy the punch.

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.

Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

Whiskey: Provides the main spirit flavour and alcoholic strength of the punch.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the lemon juice and whiskey.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the punch and cuts the sweetness.

“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.