In late spring, the home-made umeshu from the early summer of last year is now ready for tasting. The fresh green ume have now turned a deep orange. It’s always exciting to open it after 10+ months, even though I know it will never have failed (due to the super simple recipe and high alcohol content that prevents the plums from spoiling). Since plums are a wholly natural ingredient, the same recipe will produce a different result every year. When we taste the umeshu from different years, my friends are always surprised by the different flavors. Furthermore, they’re amazed by how great and different home-made umeshu tastes from the manufactured varieties (like CHxYA) and they realize that the manufactured ones contain more than ume, shochu and sugar:)
See how fresh ume matures after 10+ months
In early summer 2017, I prepared two types of umeshu – one was shochu-based (Japanese hard liquor) and the other was whiskey-based. The shochu-based umeshu, with its sweet and sour taste, went from this:
to this:
While the whiskey-based umeshu turned from this:
to this:
What is the best way to enjoy Umeshu?
Umeshu is best tasted on its own, without combining it with any other taste, which means either on the rock, with sparkling water, or even straight. Some Japanese people like to drink it with hot water to hep soothe a cold. I remember, as a child, my mother giving me a sweet and yummy hot drink whenever. It really warmed up my body and made me feel sleepy. I now know that the drink was Umeshu. My mom just didn’t tell me that the sweet trick was alcohol:)
After bottling the umeshu, there is still a plenty of ume left that, by now, has a high alcohol and sugar content. We never throw this away with Mottainai spirit and always make use of it right to the end. Find out how these leftover ume were cooked further in the next post.
Here is the recipe of home-made umeshu.