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Beaufort Punch

A chilled punch made with Sauternes, curaçao, orange juice, pineapple syrup, seltzer water, and an infusion of balm, borage, verbena, and cucumber.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Borage and cucumber share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 44 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beaufort Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the punch

  1. In a freezing pot embedded in ice, combine the Sauternes, curaçao, orange juice, pineapple syrup, and seltzer water.

  2. Infuse the balm, borage, verbena, and cucumber in the cold syrup for 2 hours.

  3. Strain the infusion into the other ingredients.

Chill and serve

  1. Ice the punch for about 30 minutes before serving.

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. Borage + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together44 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Orange + boragetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Pineapple + cucumbertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together151 recipes

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

  5. Orange + cucumbertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together325 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Sauternes
Provides the wine base, adding sweetness and mellow fruity flavour to the punch.
Curaçao
Adds orange aroma and sweetness that complements the citrus juice.
Orange juice
Contributes acidity and bright citrus flavour to balance the sweetness.
Pineapple syrup
Adds sweetness and tropical fruit flavour to the punch.
Fresh balm
Infused into the syrup to add a delicate lemony aroma.

The step that matters

Infusing the herbs and cucumber in the cold syrup. Steeping delicate herbs too long or in warm liquid can extract bitter, grassy notes. Keeping the syrup cold and limiting the infusion to the stated time keeps the aroma fresh and clean.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pineapple, syrup, borage, cucumber):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, syrup, borage, cucumber. 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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