Umeshu: Japanese Plum Cordial
Adapted from Nancy Singleton Hachisu’s Japanese Farm Food
½ pound sugar
1 pound ume: Japanese sour plums, washed
3 ½ cups vodka=one bottle plus a bit from a second; I used Tito’s vodka.
Here’s what the jar looked like on May 8, 2015:
Put the sugar, ume, and vodka into a sterilized quart jar with a lid. Cap tightly, label, and store in a cool, dark place for three months. A closet or cool kitchen cupboard works well.
After three months, taste. If you like it, refrigerate if you wish; you can also store in freezer. Serve in shot glasses as an aperitif. Keeps indefinitely, though you are unlikely to have it that long. Here’s what mine looks like now:
The taste? Smooth, not too sweet, wonderful chilled. Light, haunting, almost ephemeral. The liquor has taken on the color of old linen. The kind of thing you feel almost melancholy drinking, because there won’t be more until next year, when you’ll have the sense to put up gallons.
Umeshu is bottled commercially. I’ve never tasted it.
Notes: You can also make Apricot Cordial, as I have here, using the same recipe proportions. Mine is still curing and should be ready in October. I began it in July:
Six weeks later, it’s still infusing. Although the fruit is shrunken and the vodka has taken on a pinkish hue, the sugar isn’t entirely dissolved.
And so we wait.
The hardest part.