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Milk Punch

A chilled beverage made by dissolving sugar in water, adding milk, and slowly stirring in brandy or rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,738 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Milk Punch

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dissolve the sugar in enough water.

  2. Pour in the milk.

  3. Slowly add the brandy or rum while stirring constantly.

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. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Provides the creamy body and mild dairy richness of the punch.
Brandy or rum
Adds alcoholic warmth and aroma that gives the drink its character.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the alcohol and dairy.

The step that matters

Adding the brandy or rum. Alcohol curdles milk when it is poured in quickly or unevenly, causing clumps. Adding it slowly while stirring constantly keeps the milk smooth and evenly blended.

“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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