Why it works: Red wine and champagne share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 7 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
Combine the cleaned woodruff with 1 quart of white wine and let it steep for 30 to 40 minutes.
Strain the wine to remove the woodruff.
Dissolve the sugar in the water and add it to the strained wine.
Finish and serve
Add another quart of white wine, the red wine, and the champagne.
About 30 minutes before serving, add the ripe strawberries to the punch.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Red wine + champagnetop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together7 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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White wine + red winetop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together96 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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White wine + champagnetop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together74 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Sugar + champagnetop 14% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together400 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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White wine + sugartop 19% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together2,382 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
- Fresh woodruff
- Infuses the wine with its distinctive herbal, vanilla-like aroma as it steeps.
- Granulated sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the wines.
- Champagne
- Adds carbonation and lightness to the finished punch.
- Ripe strawberries
- Contribute fruit flavor and aroma to the punch.
The step that matters
Steeping the woodruff. Steeping too long can make woodruff taste bitter and overpowering, while too short a steep yields little aroma. Timing the steep within the stated window balances fragrance against bitterness in the wine.
“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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