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Drink

Norfolk Punch

A punch made with French brandy, citrus peels, sugar water, lemon juice, milk, and aged in a warm cellar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Norfolk Punch

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 ↓

Norfolk Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse and mix

  1. Infuse the peels of 30 lemons and 30 oranges in 20 quarts of French brandy for 12 hours.

  2. Mix 30 quarts of cooled boiled water with 15 pounds of refined sugar until well combined.

  3. Pour the sugar water over the brandy and peels, then add the juice of 30 lemons.

Clarify and age

  1. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a clean barrel that has held spirits.

  2. Add 2 quarts of new milk, stir, and seal the barrel tightly.

  3. Let it stand in a warm cellar for 6 weeks.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the liquor, ensuring bottles are clean and dry, and use high-quality corks.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Brandy + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

  4. Orange + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Brandy + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

French brandy
Provides the alcoholic base and extracts flavour from the citrus peels.
Refined sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright citrus flavour to the punch.
New milk
Softens harsh tannins and clarifies the liquor as it stands, giving a smoother texture.

The step that matters

Adding the new milk and sealing the barrel. Milk curdles and binds with suspended particles and tannins, so it clarifies the punch as it ages. Sealing the barrel keeps the alcohol and aromas in and prevents oxidation during the long rest.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, orange, sugar, milk. 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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