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Ginger Ale Punch

A chilled punch made with Apollinaris water, ginger ale, champagne, citrus juices, cucumber, mint, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Ginger Ale Punch

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large punch bowl, combine the Apollinaris water, cucumber, and mint.

  2. Add the lemon juice and orange juice.

  3. Pour in the ginger ale and champagne.

  4. Sweeten with sugar syrup to taste.

  5. Add a large piece of ice and garnish with thin slices of lemon and orange.

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. Mint + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

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

  3. Orange + gingertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + minttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together884 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

Ginger ale
Provides the main bubbly, sweet-spiced body of the punch.
Champagne
Adds more carbonation and a dry, wine-like lift to the punch.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the ginger ale and syrup.
Orange juice
Adds fruity sweetness and acidity, rounding out the citrus flavor.
Sugar syrup
Sweetens the punch, adjusted to taste.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mint, lemon, orange, ginger, champagne, sugar, syrup):

  1. Carrotfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mint, lemon, orange, ginger, champagne, sugar, syrup. 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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