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An Excellent Punch

A citrus-based punch made with lemon, sugar, water, rum, brandy, and optional porter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rum and brandy 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 ↓

An Excellent Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Rub the lemons with sugar until the yellow is absorbed.

  2. Put the sugar in a bowl and squeeze the lemon juice over it.

  3. Press the mixture well together.

  4. Mix with boiling soft water until cool.

Add the liquor

  1. Add equal parts rum and brandy, mixing thoroughly.

  2. Strain the mixture if desired before adding liquor.

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. Rum + brandytop 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

Lemons
Their zest and juice supply the bright acidity and aroma that balance the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the punch and draws oil from the lemon peel when rubbed in.
Rum and brandy
Provide the alcoholic body and warming aroma that define the punch.

The step that matters

Rubbing the lemons with sugar until the yellow is absorbed. The sugar must pull the fragrant oils out of the peel. Rubbing too little leaves the punch flat and bitter-free but weak in aroma, while adding liquor before the sugar dissolves can leave grainy sweetness.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, rum, brandy. 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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