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Claret Cup for a Party

A chilled fruit punch made with claret, champagne, sparkling water, Maraschino liqueur, and citrus fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Claret Cup for a Party

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Mix lump sugar with Appollinaris in a bowl.

  2. Slice lemons, oranges, and pineapple, and add to the bowl.

Chill and serve

  1. Pour Maraschino liqueur into the mixture and stir well with a ladle.

  2. Transfer mixture to a vessel or tin dish filled with ice.

  3. Add claret and Champagne to the chilled mixture and stir thoroughly 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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Pineapple + champagnetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together97 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Lemon + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

  5. Orange + champagnetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together260 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

Lump sugar
Dissolves into the mineral water to sweeten the punch.
Lemons
Add acidity that balances the sweetness and brightens the wine.
Oranges
Add citrus acidity and aroma, with juice and peel flavouring the punch.
Pineapple
Adds fruity sweetness and juiciness to the punch.
Maraschino liqueur
Adds sweetness and a distinct cherry-almond aroma.
Claret
Forms the wine base, providing body, tannin and most of the flavour.

The step that matters

Chill before adding the wine. Cold mixture keeps the punch refreshing and slows dilution from the ice, while the sparkling wine is added last so it keeps its fizz.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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