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Drink

Apollinaris Punch

A citrus and fruit punch made with sugar, tea, lemon, orange, strawberry syrup, pineapple, Apollinaris water, and iced water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Apollinaris Punch

fill a gallon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar and 1 cup of water for 10 minutes over low heat.

Combine and steep

  1. Let the mixture cool, then add the cold tea and the juice from the lemons and oranges.

  2. Allow the mixture to sit for a while to extract the flavors.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, add the Apollinaris water and enough iced water to fill a gallon.

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. Strawberry + pineappletop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together433 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Orange + strawberrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together726 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolves into the boiled water to add sweetness and balance the citrus acidity.
Lemons
Provide sharp acidity and bright citrus flavor that cuts the sweetness.
Oranges
Add sweetness, body and aromatic citrus flavor alongside the lemon juice.
Cold tea
Adds tannins and a subtle bitter, tea-like depth to the punch.
Apollinaris water
Adds carbonation, giving the punch a lively, fizzy lift when served.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the tea and juices. Adding cold tea or juice to syrup that is still hot can dilute the flavor unevenly and dull the citrus aroma. Cooling first keeps the bright juice flavors intact and the blend balanced.

Swap the strawberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, tea, lemon, orange, syrup, pineapple):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Strawberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, tea, lemon, orange, syrup, pineapple. 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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