Name: Chesterfield Punch
Ingredients: 2 bottles champagne; ½ pint pineapple syrup; ½ pint strawberry syrup; juice of 3 oranges; juice of 3 lemons; rind of 1 lemon rubbed on sugar; 1 quart German seltzer water; ice

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 ↓

Chesterfield Punch

Ingredients

Directions

In a freezing pot, combine the champagne, pineapple syrup, strawberry syrup, orange juice, lemon juice, and lemon rind sugar.
Add the German seltzer water and mix well.
Fill the pot with ice to chill thoroughly.

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.

Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Pineapple + strawberrytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together433 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Champagne + strawberrytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together64 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together97 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Champagne: Provides the main sparkling body and dry wine flavour of the punch.
Pineapple syrup: Adds sweetness and fruity flavour to balance the acidity.
Strawberry syrup: Adds sweetness and fruity aroma to the punch.
Orange juice: Adds acidity and citrus flavour to brighten the punch.
Lemon juice: Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweet syrups.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (champagne, pineapple, syrup, strawberry, orange, sugar):

Vanillafits better
Peachfits better
Apricotfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against champagne, pineapple, syrup, strawberry, orange, sugar. 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.