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Punch, Liqueurs, Etc

A fermented punch made with sugar, lemon, water, cream of tartar, lemon juice, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Punch, Liqueurs, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Dissolve sugar and lemon peel in water.

  2. Pour into an earthen pan.

Ferment

  1. Add cream of tartar and lemon juice, and let it stand for 24 hours.

  2. Add yeast and let it stand for another 24 hours.

Bottle and rest

  1. Bottle and cork securely, straining before bottling.

  2. It will be ready for use in a week.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Sugar and lemon 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

Sugar
Provides sweetness and food for the yeast to ferment.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar, producing gas and alcohol that give the punch its lift and character.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps balance the sweetness.
Cream of tartar
Adds mild acidity that sharpens flavor and helps keep the punch stable.
Lemon peel
Adds aromatic citrus oils that flavor the liquid.

The step that matters

Corking securely after the yeast has worked. Yeast keeps fermenting after bottling and releases carbon dioxide. If the bottles are not sealed tightly, the gas can escape or fizz out, and if they are sealed too tightly without strain, pressure can build. Straining first removes solids that would keep fermenting in the bottle.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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