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Fruit Punch

A sweet beverage made with raisins, water, sugar, citrus, claret wine, and ice water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Fruit Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine raisins and cold water in a saucepan; bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture, add sugar and lemon rind shavings, and boil for an additional 5 minutes.

Finish the punch

  1. Stir in orange juice and lemon juice, cool, and strain again.

  2. Add claret wine and ice water to taste.

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. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Orange + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,046 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Simmered to release their sweetness and fruity flavor into the liquid.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the citrus juices.
Lemon rind shavings
Contribute aromatic citrus oils that flavor the punch.
Orange juice
Adds fruity sweetness and body to the punch.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the punch and balances the sugar.
Claret wine
Contributes tannin, acidity and fruity flavor to the finished punch.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture before adding sugar. Straining removes the raisin solids and rind bits so the punch stays clear and smooth. Boiling the sugar and rind briefly dissolves the sugar and extracts citrus aroma without making the rind bitter.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Blackberryfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, orange, wine. 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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