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Drink

Clinton's Punch

A chilled punch made with English breakfast tea, champagne, claret, Curacao, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tea and champagne work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 24 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Clinton's Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tea

  1. Brew 2 cups of English breakfast tea and let it cool.

Make the punch

  1. In a punch bowl, combine the cooled tea, 1 bottle of American champagne, and 4 bottles of claret.

  2. Add Curacao to taste.

Serve

  1. Add a large lump of ice to the punch bowl and serve.

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. Tea + champagnetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

English breakfast tea
Adds tannin and a brisk, slightly bitter black-tea backbone that balances the sweetness.
American champagne
Adds sparkle and lightness through carbonation.
Claret
Forms the body of the punch, adding dry red-wine fruit and tannin.
Curacao
Adds sweetness and orange aroma from its citrus-peel flavouring.
Ice
Chills the punch and gradually dilutes it as it melts.

The step that matters

Let the tea cool before combining. Adding warm liquid to champagne drives off its carbonation faster and can make the punch taste flat. Cooling the tea first keeps the sparkle and the balance of the blend intact.

“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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