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Drink

Modern Cookery

A hot punch made from sugar, boiling water, currant or guava jelly, brandy and rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and rum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,058 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dissolve sugar in boiling water in a hot jug.

  2. Add currant or guava jelly and stir well.

  3. Keep the mixture very hot.

  4. Add 2 glasses of brandy and 1 glass of rum to taste.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Brandy + rumtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,058 recipes

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

  2. Currant + brandytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Currant + rumtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Sugar + rumtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,907 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,939 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

Sugar
Provides sweetness to balance the strong spirits.
Currant jelly or guava jelly
Adds fruity sweetness and body to the punch.
Brandy
Supplies the main spirit flavour and warmth.
Rum
Adds a second layer of spirit flavour and aroma.

The step that matters

Keep the mixture very hot. Alcohol evaporates and its aroma fades when the punch cools, and the sugar and jelly dissolve more fully while hot. Keeping it hot preserves the warm aroma and smooth texture of the drink.

Flavor stand-ins for the currant

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

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Pineapplebetter flavor fit
  3. Apricotbetter flavor fit
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, rum. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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