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Drink

Empire Punch

A large punch made with citrus peels, sugar, pineapple, strawberries, sparkling water, liqueurs, rum, brandy, champagne, and various wines.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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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 ↓

Empire Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the grated peels of the oranges and lemons into the lump sugar.

  2. Add the sliced pineapple and strawberries to the sugar mixture.

Make the punch

  1. Pour in the Apollinaris, maraschino, curaçao, Benedictine, rum, brandy, champagne, Tokay, Madeira, and Château Lafite.

  2. Mix well and strain through a sieve.

Serve

  1. Surround the bowl with ice and garnish with leaves from the pineapple and strawberries.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Pineapple + rumtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Rum + brandytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  5. Brandy + champagnetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together169 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

Lump sugar
Sweetens the punch and draws citrus oil from the peels into the mixture.
Oranges
Add bright citrus flavor and aroma from their grated peel and juice.
Lemons
Add acidity and aroma that balance the sweetness of the sugar and wine.
Pineapple
Adds fruity sweetness and acidity to the punch.
Strawberries
Add fruity flavor and color to the punch.
Champagne
Provides sparkle and a dry, fruity base for the punch.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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