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Colonial Punch

A citrus and wine punch with rum, cognac, and champagne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

Colonial Punch

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Juice the oranges and lemons into a large bowl.

  2. Add the fine sugar and stir until dissolved.

  3. Pour in the red Bordeaux wine and Jamaica rum, mixing well.

  4. Add the old cognac and stir to combine.

  5. Finally, gently mix in the sparkling champagne 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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Rum + champagnetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Wine + champagnetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together172 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Wine + rumtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  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

Oranges
Add juice and fresh citrus acidity that balances the sweetness and wine.
Lemons
Add sharp acidity that brightens the punch and balances the sugar.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the punch and softens the acidity of the citrus juice.
Red bordeaux wine
Forms the body of the punch and adds tannin and fruity flavour.
Sparkling champagne
Adds bubbles and lightness to the finished punch.

The step that matters

Adding the sparkling champagne. Champagne should be mixed in gently and last. Stirring vigorously releases carbon dioxide, so the punch goes flat quickly and loses its fizz.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, sugar, wine, rum, champagne. 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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