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Drink

Punch a LA Romaine, or Roman Punch

A chilled punch made with lemon ice, sugar, egg whites, rum, brandy, Maraschino liqueur, and Noyau liqueur.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rum and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,058 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Punch a LA Romaine, or Roman Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare lemon ice with minimal sugar.

  2. Boil ½ cup of syrup until it reaches the second degree.

Make the punch

  1. Whisk the egg whites until frothy.

  2. Add the hot syrup to the egg whites.

  3. Mix in the rum, brandy, Maraschino, and Noyau.

  4. Combine this mixture with the lemon ice and whisk until thick.

Serve

  1. Serve in glasses for balls or gatherings.

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

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

  2. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  3. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they give the punch a light, airy, thick body.
Sugar
Boiled into syrup, it sweetens the punch and helps stabilise the whipped foam.
Lemon ice
Adds cold, tart citrus flavour and body to the punch.
Rum
Adds alcoholic warmth and aroma that carries the spirit flavour of the punch.
Brandy
Adds fruity depth and aroma alongside the other spirits.

The step that matters

Adding the hot syrup to the egg whites. Pouring hot syrup into whipped whites while beating cooks the proteins gently and builds a stable, thick foam. If the syrup is too cool or added too fast, the foam stays loose and may deflate.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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