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Drink

Empire Punch

A large punch made with oranges, lemons, sugar, pineapple, strawberries, sparkling water, and a mixture of liqueurs and wines.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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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 ↓

Empire Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Rub the peel of the oranges and lemons into the lump sugar.

  2. Add the sliced pineapple and strawberries to the sugar mixture.

Mix and serve

  1. Pour in the Apollinaris, maraschino, curaçao, Benedictine, rum, brandy, champagne, Tokay, Madeira, and Château Lafite.

  2. Mix well and strain through a sieve.

  3. Surround the bowl with ice and garnish with pineapple leaves and strawberries.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Pineapple + rumtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Rum + champagnetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Brandy + champagnetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together169 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Lump sugar
Sweetens the punch and draws citrus oils out of the peel.
Oranges
Peel supplies aromatic oils and juice adds sweetness and acidity.
Lemons
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar and wines.
Champagne
Adds sparkle and carbonation to the punch.
Brandy
Adds alcohol strength and warm aroma to the punch.

The step that matters

Rubbing the citrus peel into the sugar. Citrus oils sit in the peel, and rubbing them into the sugar transfers their aroma. Skipping or shortening this step leaves the punch tasting flat and less fragrant.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, sugar, pineapple, rum, brandy, champagne, wine. 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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