Umeshu

Umeshu is a delicious, bright and fresh infused Japanese liquor made out of green plums, sugar and sake.

Ingredients:
2-3 lbs. hard, green plums
1 C. sugar
2 large bottles sake

Materials:
Large jar

Step 1 Find Green Plums

The most inexpensive way of getting fruit is harvesting fruit from your neighborhood. If you know of a plum tree in your neighborhood, you may skip this step. Otherwise, you may locate plum tress in your neighborhood by going to Public Trees Map at the Neighborhood Fruit website. Put your zipcode and distance (ex. 94110 and 1) and search. Take note of the tree addresses and get ready for your adventure!

Comments

[holyvic]

I'm dead keen to make some tasty umeshu but I'm a little bit confused, is umeshu made with shochu or sake? Is there a difference in outcome when it is made with either base? I might just do both and see what happens, yum yum.

[neighborhoodfruit]

Hey Holly, Based on our research both Shochu and Sake will work. They are very similar rice wines. For ours, we used the cheap sake at Trader Joe's. But if you can't get sake, shochu should work.

[mikeasaurus]

recipes I've read say umeshu is made with dried fruit. Dried fruit obviously has less water content and may behave differently compared to fresh, does your variety taste any different?

Let us know when your umeshu is ready for consumption!

[neighborhoodfruit]

Hey Mikeasaurus,
We've heard that Umeshu had to be made with green plums, which means that they can't be dried ('cos then they would ripen). We have tasted the batches at 2 weeks, 1 month and 2 months and it has a sweet, distinctive plum flavor and scent.
We also called our friend's mom, who is a giant hippy in Japan to confirm this is the way that it should be done.
Let us know how yours turns out!
Neighborhood Fruit

[mikeasaurus]

oops, turns out I misinterpreted the guideline on the recipes I found, it says to dry the fruit not dried fruit. Apologies for the confusion. (also, good call on the Japanese hippie, no better source than that!)

As an avid brewer and fruit steeper this looks like loads of fun, the taste must be so good! Though I enjoy making my own alcoholic bevy's I do not have a batch of my own umeshu :(
Maybe it's time to find me some plum trees to raid....