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Drink

Oxfobd Punch

A citrus and spirit punch made with lemon and Seville orange rinds, juices, calf's feet jelly, water, sweet syrup, wine, brandy, rum, and orange shrub.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Oxfobd Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the essence

  1. Rub the rinds of 3 lemons with sugar lumps to extract essence.

  2. Combine the lemon essence, thin peels of 2 Seville oranges and 2 lemons, juices of 4 Seville oranges and 10 lemons, and 6 glasses of calf's feet jelly in a large jug. Stir well.

Make the punch

  1. Add 2 quarts of boiling water.

  2. Cover the jug and let it sit near the fire for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture into a punch bowl or jug.

  4. Sweeten with 1 bottle of capillaire.

  5. Add ½ pint of white wine, 1 pint of French brandy, 1 pint of Jamaica rum, and 1 bottle of orange shrub. Stir.

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. Brandy + rumtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  3. White wine + rumtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together113 recipes

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

  4. White wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together620 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemon rinds
Lemon rinds rubbed with sugar lumps release aromatic oils that flavour the punch.
Lemon and orange juice
Citrus juice adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Calf's feet jelly
Gelatin-rich jelly adds body and a silky mouthfeel to the punch.
Capillaire
Sweet syrup adds sweetness to offset the sharp citrus.
French brandy and jamaica rum
Spirits add strength and warm, rich flavour to the punch.

The step that matters

Sweeten with capillaire after straining. Sweetness is added last, once the citrus and jelly have infused, so the balance can be judged. Sugar dissolves easily in the liquid, but adding it too early can make the punch overly sharp or syrupy once the spirits go in.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, syrup, white wine, brandy, rum):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, syrup, white wine, brandy, rum. 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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