Name: Fairy Punch
Ingredients: Juice from 1 can of pineapple; Juice from 3 oranges; Juice from 3 lemons; 1 cup of cold tea; 2 cups sugar; 1 quart of unfermented grape juice; 1 quart of soda water; Ice

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 ↓

Fairy Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Combine the juice from the pineapple, oranges, and lemons in a large bowl.
Add the cold tea and sugar, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
Mix in the unfermented grape juice.

Serve

Before serving, add ice and top with soda water.

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.

Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Pineapple + grapetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together709 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Orange + grapetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,771 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lemon + teatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together610 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

Sugar: Sweetens the punch and helps balance the acidity of the citrus juices.
Lemons: Add acidity and brightness that balance the sweetness of the sugar and juices.
Soda water: Adds carbonation, giving the punch a light, lively fizz.

Swap the grape

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

Vanillafits better
Limefits better
Peachfits better
Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, orange, lemon, tea, 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.