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Drink

Iced Punch

A chilled cocktail made with wine or whiskey, ice water, whipped egg white, sugar, mint, and pounded ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and mint work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 442 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Iced Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the punch

  1. In a mixing glass, combine the wine or whiskey with the ice water.

  2. Add the whipped egg white and sugar, and mix well.

  3. Stir in the chopped mint and pounded ice.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately, ensuring it is ice cold.

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. Wine + minttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together442 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Wine + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + minttop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

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

  5. Egg + minttop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together907 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Wine or whiskey
Forms the base liquid and gives the punch its main alcoholic flavour.
Egg white
Whipped stiff, it traps air and gives the punch a light, foamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the alcohol and the tartness of the liquid.
Mint
Adds a fresh aroma and herbal flavour to the punch.

The step that matters

Adding the whipped egg white and mixing well. Whipped egg white foam is fragile and traps air. If it is not mixed in well, it clumps or separates, and the punch loses its light texture. Serving promptly keeps the foam from collapsing.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, egg, 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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