Name: Brandy Punch
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon raspberry syrup; 2 teaspoons white powdered sugar; ⅓ cup water; 1½ cups brandy; 1½ small lemons; 2 slices of orange; 1 piece of pineapple; chipped ice; berries in season for garnish

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 ↓

Brandy Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Combine raspberry syrup, white powdered sugar, water, brandy, lemon juice, orange slices, and pineapple in a large tumbler.
Fill the tumbler with chipped ice and shake well.
Garnish the top with seasonal berries and serve with a straw.

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Raspberry + pineappletop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together195 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, sweet).
Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Raspberry + lemontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,109 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brandy: Provides the spirit base and warming flavour that carries the whole punch.
Lemons: Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the syrup and sugar.
Raspberry syrup: Adds sweetness and fruity aroma with a bright colour.
White powdered sugar: Sweetens the punch and dissolves quickly into the liquid.
Pineapple: Contributes fruity sweetness and a tropical note to the drink.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raspberry, syrup, sugar, brandy, orange, pineapple):

Vanillafits better
Apricotfits better
Peachfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raspberry, syrup, sugar, brandy, orange, pineapple. 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.