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Mint Punch

Mint Punch is a chilled lemon and mint beverage with sugar, ice, and ginger ale.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,998 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mint Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In a large bowl, combine the sugar and lemon juice, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

  2. Add the sliced lemons and refrigerate until ready to use.

Serve

  1. Just before serving, add the mint and pounded ice, stirring well.

  2. Pour in the ginger ale from a height to mix.

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 + minttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mint + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar
Dissolves into the lemon juice to sweeten the punch and balance its acidity.
Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the punch its bright flavour.
Ginger ale
Adds carbonation and gingery sweetness, lifting the punch as it is poured in.
Mint
Adds a fresh aromatic note that perfumes the punch.

The step that matters

Pour in the ginger ale from a height. Pouring from a height mixes the carbonated ginger ale gently without stirring it hard. Vigorous stirring releases the bubbles, leaving the punch flat.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, ginger. 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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