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Drink

Milk Punch

An alcoholic milk beverage flavored with sherry, brandy, or rum and sweetened, garnished with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,479 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Milk Punch

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pour the milk into a glass.

  2. Add the sherry, brandy, or rum.

  3. Sweeten to your liking.

  4. Shake well to combine.

  5. Dust a little grated nutmeg over the top 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. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Sherry + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,246 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the creamy, mild base that gives the drink its body.
Sherry, brandy, or rum
Adds warmth and aroma that give the drink its distinct character.
Sweetener
Balances the sharpness of the spirit with sweetness.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sherry. 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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