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Milk Punch

A cold punch made with rum, brandy, milk, and citrus peel steeped in alcohol.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

Milk Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse and mix

  1. Steep the peels of the oranges and lemons in 2 pints of rum for 24 hours.

  2. Dissolve 6 lbs of sugar in 16 pints of boiling water.

  3. Add the juice and pulp of the oranges and lemons to the sugar water.

  4. The next day, add the steeped peels, 11 pints of rum, and 3 pints of brandy. Stir well.

Curdle and clarify

  1. Pour in 2 quarts of boiling new milk and 2 quarts of boiling skimmed milk. Cover immediately without stirring.

  2. Let it stand until the next day.

  3. Strain through a jelly bag.

  4. If it does not run bright, add 1 pint more boiling milk. Let it stand another day.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Rum + brandytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  3. Rum + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together967 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Orange + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Seville oranges and lemons
Peels give aromatic oil, while juice and pulp supply sharp acidity that balances the sugar.
Rum
Carries the citrus aroma and acts as the main spirit, preserving the punch.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the citrus juice.
Brandy
Adds depth and aroma to the spirit base.
New milk and skimmed milk
Hot milk curdles with the acidic citrus, and the curds trap impurities so the punch clears when strained.

The step that matters

Pouring in the boiling milk and leaving it undisturbed. Hot milk meeting the acidic citrus curdles, and the curds gather impurities. Stirring after the milk goes in breaks up the curd, so the punch will not clear when strained.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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