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Drink

Cold Punch

A chilled beverage made with lemon juice, sugar, pale brandy, pale rum, arrack, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and rum are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,058 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cold Punch

Ingredients

Directions

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

  2. Add the brandy, rum, arrack, and cold water to the mixture. Stir well and let it sit for a while before decanting.

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

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

  2. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + rumtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Lemon juice
Provides acidity that balances the sweetness and brightens the punch.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the acidity and the alcohol's sharpness.
Pale brandy
Contributes the base spirit flavor and body to the punch.
Pale rum
Adds depth and a rounded sweetness alongside the brandy.
Arrack
Adds a distinctive aromatic, funky note in small amounts.

The step that matters

Dissolving the sugar in the lemon juice. Sugar dissolves far more readily in acidic liquid when it is stirred well and given time, so combining it fully before adding the spirits prevents grainy sweetness and an uneven balance in the finished punch.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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