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Drink

Punch K LA Bourgeoise

A punch made with lemon slices, green tea, brandy, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and green tea work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 104 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Punch K LA Bourgeoise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemons

  1. Peel the lemons thinly and remove the inner white skin.

  2. Cut the juicy part into thin slices, removing the seeds.

  3. Boil the lemon slices and peel in boiling water a few times.

Make the punch

  1. Add the green tea and let it infuse for 5 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a napkin.

  3. Add the brandy and sugar to the strained mixture.

  4. Heat the punch until nearly boiling, then pour it into a 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 + green teatop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together104 recipes

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

  2. Green tea + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (sweet).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + brandytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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
Supply the main citrus aroma and sharp acidity that balances the sweetness.
Brandy
Adds alcohol-based aroma and warmth, and carries the lemon flavour through the punch.
Sugar
Sweetens the punch and softens the sharpness of the lemon acidity.
Green tea
Adds subtle bitterness and aromatic tannins to the infused liquid.

The step that matters

Heat the punch until nearly boiling. Heating the punch gently helps the sugar dissolve fully and blends the flavours, but boiling drives off alcohol and aroma from the brandy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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