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Champagne Punch

A punch made with rum, water, green tea, lemon juice, sugar, lemon slices, ice, and champagne.

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

Why it works: Rum and champagne match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 137 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Champagne Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Mix the rums and water in a large bowl.

  2. Prepare strong green tea, then strain and add to the rum mixture.

  3. Juice the lemons and mix with sugar until sweetened to taste.

  4. Add the lemon juice mixture to the bowl and stir well.

Finish and serve

  1. Incorporate slices of lemon without rind and a large lump of ice.

  2. Just before serving, pour in champagne according 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Rum + champagnetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Rum + green teatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together60 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Lemon + champagnetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Rum + sugartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  5. Green tea + champagnetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together39 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Old jamaica rum
Provides the main spirit flavour and body of the punch.
Old santa cruz rum
Adds a second layer of rum character and depth to the base.
Lemon juice
Brings acidity that balances the sugar and the rum's sweetness.
White granulated sugar
Sweetens the punch and softens the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Champagne
Adds sparkle and lightness just before serving.

The step that matters

Adding the champagne. Champagne should go in just before serving, because its carbonation escapes quickly once poured and the punch goes flat if it sits. Adding it last also keeps the sparkle and lets each glass be adjusted to taste.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rum, green tea, sugar, champagne):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rum, green tea, sugar, 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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