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73 St. Charles' Punch

A punch made with powdered sugar, Port wine, brandy, lemon juice, shaved ice, and seasonal fruit garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and brandy work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 127 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

73 St. Charles' Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the punch

  1. Dissolve the sugar in a little water.

  2. In a large bar glass, combine the dissolved sugar, Port wine, brandy, and lemon juice.

  3. Fill the glass with shaved ice and shake well.

Garnish and serve

  1. Garnish with seasonal fruits and 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.

  1. Port wine + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  4. Port wine + lemontop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Brandy + lemontop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Sugar and lemon 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

Powdered white sugar
Sweetens the punch and dissolves easily once mixed into a little water.
Port wine
Provides the main body and sweet, fortified wine flavor.
Brandy
Adds strength and warm, fruity depth to the drink.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the wines.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Currantfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, port wine, 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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