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Drink

Pony Punch

A hot alcoholic punch made with gunpowder tea, lemon, sugar, spices, wine, brandy, rum, and whiskey.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pony Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Combine

  1. Rub the zest of one lemon onto three lumps of sugar.

  2. In a pot, combine the gunpowder tea, lemon zest sugar, powdered cinnamon, lemon juice, nutmeg, and sugar syrup made from half a pound sugar and half a pint water.

  3. Add the white wine, brandy, rum, and whiskey.

  4. Mix well and bring to a boil.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the mixture and serve very hot.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. White wine + rumtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together113 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Gunpowder tea
Provides a tea base with mild astringency that balances the sweetness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the punch and balances the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the punch and adds body to the syrup.
White wine
Adds acidity and volume, diluting the strong spirits.
Brandy
Adds warmth and aromatic depth from its alcohol and flavour compounds.
Rum
Contributes sweet, rounded flavour and extra alcohol warmth.

The step that matters

Bringing the mixture to a boil. Boiling drives off alcohol and delicate aromas, so heating too long can leave the punch harsher and less fragrant.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tea, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, white wine, brandy, rum):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tea, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, white wine, 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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