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Drink

Mint Punch

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mint and lemon 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

Make the mint base

  1. Chop the mint finely and pound it.

  2. Mix in the powdered sugar and juice of 2 lemons; let it stand for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

  3. Strain the mixture, pressing hard to extract all the juice.

  4. Add the strained juice of 4 more lemons.

Make the syrup

  1. Prepare a syrup by boiling 1 cup of sugar with 1 pint of water, then chill it.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the syrup, sliced lemon rind, and fresh mint sprigs to the mixture; stir well.

  2. Finally, add 1 quart of shaved ice and 2 bottles of ginger ale, then serve.

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. Mint + lemontop 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

Mint
Pounding the chopped leaves releases their oils, giving the punch its fresh aroma and flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sugar and brightens the flavor of the punch.
Sugar
Sweetens the punch and balances the acidity of the lemon juice.
Ginger ale
Adds sweetness and carbonation, making the punch lighter and effervescent.

The step that matters

Straining the mint mixture. Pressing hard extracts the most flavorful juice from the macerated mint and lemon, but pressing too hard can push through bitter plant matter, so the cook should press firmly and steadily rather than forcing it through.

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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