Skip to main content
Drink

Fine Milk Punch

A chilled punch made with water, milk, lemon juice, brandy, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Fine Milk Punch

Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fine Milk Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the punch

  1. Warm the water and milk together.

  2. Add sugar and lemon juice, then stir well.

  3. Mix in the brandy and stir again.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain through a flannel bag until very fine.

  2. Bottle it up.

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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

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

Milk
Its proteins curdle with the lemon juice, and the curds carry cloudiness out when straining.
Lemon juice
Its acidity curdles the milk proteins, which then clarify the punch and add tartness.
Brandy
Its alcohol carries aroma and helps preserve the punch.
Sugar
Its sweetness balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.

The step that matters

Adding the lemon juice to the warm milk. Acid makes the milk proteins clump into curds. These curds trap cloudiness and sediment, so the straining step can clear the punch. Stir enough to distribute the acid so the curds form evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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.

More milk punch recipes

Rum 15Cambridge 9Hot 3 See all 169 →

You might also like

Lemon WheyLemon Whey33 recipesLemon WineLemon Wine31 recipesLemon SquashLemon Squash10 recipesLemon EssenceLemon Essence8 recipes