Skip to main content
Drink

Punch K LA Francaise, Hot

A hot punch made with rum, sugar, citrus juices, green tea, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Punch K LA Francaise, Hot

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the rum and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Stir continuously until the mixture is reduced by half.

  3. Add the lemon and orange juice, then keep the pan hot on the stove.

  4. Steep the green tea in boiling water for 10 minutes, then strain it into the rum mixture.

  5. Return the mixture to the stove and skim thoroughly just before it boils.

  6. Pour into a punch bowl and 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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Rum + green teatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together60 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Rum + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 recipes

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

  4. Rum + sugartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  5. Orange + green teatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together46 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Jamaica rum
Provides the spirit base and much of the punch's aroma and warmth.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and, when reduced with the rum, body to the punch.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar and rum.
Sweet orange juice
Adds fruity sweetness and aroma with a softer acidity than lemon.
Green tea
Contributes subtle bitterness and tannin that give the punch depth.

The step that matters

Skim just before the mixture boils. Heating the punch to a boil can make foam and impurities rise to the surface and cloud the drink, so the skimming must be thorough before boiling begins.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Mangofits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rum, sugar, orange, green tea. 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.

You might also like

Orange SyrupOrange Syrup47 recipesLemon WheyLemon Whey33 recipesLemon WineLemon Wine31 recipesOrange Water IceOrange Water Ice28 recipes