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Drink

Fruit Punch

Fruit Punch is a chilled beverage made from boiled pineapple, sugar, water, strong tea, citrus juices, fruit juice, maraschino cherries, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Fruit Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the grated pineapple, sugar, and water for 20 minutes.

  2. Add the strong tea and strain the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. When cold, stir in the lemon juice, orange juice, fruit juice, maraschino cherries, and additional water.

  2. Add a large piece of ice before serving.

  3. Optionally, serve with a bottle of Apollinaris water or ginger ale, mint leaves, and pieces of pineapple or berries.

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. Pineapple + strawberrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together433 recipes

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

  3. Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Tea + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together610 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
Sweetens the punch and helps balance the acidity of the citrus juices.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the punch and balances its sweetness.
Orange juice
Adds fruity sweetness and acidity, giving the punch body and aroma.
Strong tea
Adds tannins that give the punch a subtle astringent depth.
Grated pineapple
Infuses the syrup with fruity flavor and aroma during boiling.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture before adding the citrus. Straining removes the pineapple pulp and tea leaves so the syrup stays clear and smooth. Adding the lemon and orange juice only once the syrup is cold prevents the citrus flavors from turning dull.

Swap the strawberry

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

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

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