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Mint Punch

A citrus and mint punch made with lemon juice, sugar, ice, ginger ale, and fresh mint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,998 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mint Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the sugar in the strained juice of the lemons.

  2. Add the sliced lemons to the mixture.

  3. Leave in a large bowl on ice until just before serving.

Assemble and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a punch bowl.

  2. Mix in the powdered ice. Stir gently.

  3. Pour the ginger ale from a height of two feet onto the mixture.

  4. Add the bruised mint sprays.

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. Lemon + minttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Ginger + minttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Granulated sugar
Dissolves into the lemon juice to sweeten the punch and balance its acidity.
Lemon juice
Provides acidity that brightens the punch and balances the sweetness.
Ginger ale
Adds carbonation and gentle ginger flavour that lightens the punch.
Powdered ice
Chills the punch quickly while diluting it slightly as it melts.

The step that matters

Pour the ginger ale gently from a height. Carbonation is lost quickly when the liquid is agitated or poured vigorously. Pouring from a height over the mixture aerates it while keeping most of the fizz, so the punch stays lively rather than flat.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, ginger):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, ginger. 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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