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Drink

Punch

A citrus punch made with lemon and orange juice, sugar syrup, tea, brandy, rum, Champagne, and Chartreuse.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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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 ↓

Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Rub loaf sugar over the peels of the lemons to release the oil.

  2. Squeeze juice from the lemons and oranges, removing seeds.

  3. Combine the juice with 5 pounds of sugar and 2 quarts of water in a pot.

  4. Add cloves and mace in a bag, then simmer for 10 minutes to create a syrup.

  5. Bottle the syrup for future use.

Assemble the punch

  1. Mix 1 pint of green tea, 1 scant pint of brandy, 1 quart of rum, 1 quart of Champagne, and 1 teacupful of Chartreuse.

  2. Sweeten the mixture to taste with the syrup.

  3. Pour into a punch bowl with a large piece of ice.

  4. Slice 3 oranges and 3 lemons, removing seeds, and add to the punch bowl.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Brandy + rumtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  3. Orange + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Loaf sugar
Sweetens the punch and, with water, forms the syrup that balances the citrus.
Lemons
Provide acidity and fragrant oil from the peel that flavors the syrup.
Oranges
Add juice for sweetness and acidity, with a softer citrus aroma.
Green tea
Adds mild tannin and bitterness that gives the punch structure against the sugar.
Brandy
Adds alcohol and warm aromatic body to the punch.
Jamaica rum
Adds alcohol and a rich, molasses-like depth of flavor.

The step that matters

Sweeten the mixture to taste with the syrup. Alcohol, tea and acid all change how sweet the punch tastes, and sugar dissolves best as a syrup. Adding it gradually and tasting as you go keeps the balance from becoming cloying or too sharp.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, orange, sugar, clove, green tea, brandy, rum):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, orange, sugar, clove, green tea, brandy, rum. 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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