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Temperance Punch

A fruit punch made from raspberries, currants, lemon and orange juice, sugar syrup, and crushed ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Temperance Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. In a bowl, mash the raspberries and currants to a pulp.

  2. Add 4 quarts of water and let it stand covered for 2 to 3 hours.

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, boil 4 cups of granulated sugar with 4 cups of water and a little lemon rind for 10 minutes.

  2. Once cold, add the juice of 8 lemons and 6 oranges.

Combine and serve

  1. Strain both mixtures and combine them.

  2. Keep the punch cold until ready to serve, then add 1 quart of finely crushed ice.

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. Currant + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,034 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Raspberries
Provide the main fruit flavor and pulp that colors and thickens the punch.
Currants
Add tart fruit flavor and acidity that balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the punch and balances the sharpness of the citrus juices.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright citrus flavor to the punch.
Oranges
Add sweetness and aromatic citrus flavor to the punch.

The step that matters

Once cold, add the juice of 8 lemons and 6 oranges.. Adding citrus juice to a hot syrup can dull its fresh flavor and cloud the liquid. Letting the syrup cool first keeps the punch bright and clear.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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