Name: Brandy Punch
Ingredients: 1 teaspoon powdered white sugar; 1 teaspoon raspberry syrup; ⅓ cup brandy; ⅓ cup Jamaica rum; Juice of ½ lemon; 2 slices of orange; 1 piece of pineapple; Shaved ice; Berries in season for garnish

Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 ↓

Brandy Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Dissolve the powdered sugar in a little water in a large bar glass.
Add the raspberry syrup, brandy, Jamaica rum, and lemon juice.
Add the orange slices and pineapple piece.
Fill the glass with shaved ice. Shake thoroughly.
Garnish the top with seasonal berries.
Serve with a straw.

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Rum + pineappletop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Brandy + rumtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,058 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together195 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Brandy: Provides the main spirit base and warming flavor of the punch.
Jamaica rum: Adds a fuller, molasses-like sweetness and aroma alongside the brandy.
Powdered white sugar: Dissolves to add sweetness that balances the lemon's acidity.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and spirits.

Swap the lemon

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

Vanillafits better
Apricotfits better
Peachfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raspberry, syrup, brandy, rum, orange, pineapple. 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.