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Drink

Claret Punch

A chilled alcoholic punch made with claret, water, lemon juice, Madeira or Sherry, rum, pineapple, sugar, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rum and pineapple work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 451 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Claret Punch

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine claret and water in a large pitcher.

  2. Juice the lemons and add the juice to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the Madeira or Sherry wine and rum.

  4. Add the sliced pineapple and sugar to taste.

  5. Chill thoroughly with large lumps of ice before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Sherry + rumtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Sherry + pineappletop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together228 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Lemon + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

  5. Rum + sugartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 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

Claret
Forms the wine base that gives the punch its main flavour and colour.
Lemons
Add acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar and wine.
Madeira or sherry wine
Adds richness and depth to the wine base.
Rum
Adds body and aroma to the punch.
Sliced pineapple
Adds fruit flavour and a touch of sweetness.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, rum, pineapple, sugar. 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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