Watch out Martha Stewart. What out Rachael Ray. You have competition.
With the lack of strawberries in Okinawa during the summer months, I've been missing using my jam making skills. Last spring, Shelly taught me how to make jam and I've been obsessed every since. I thought I would be making cherry jam in Japan, but that's not the case. I'm encountering a lack of fruit in general. There is more than enough vegetables to provide a healthy snack, but sometimes you want a sweet berry instead of a cucumber.
Refusing to be discouraged, I recently browsed the mostly vegetable selection at the MaxValu grocery store near our house. I wanted to make something homemade. Something with a Japanese flavor. Something. Anything.
When I turned the corner into the sake section, I found my answer: plum liquor.
No doubt it took a moment to discover what the locals were brewing with these green plums called ume.
I examined the display case selling two-liter and four-liter glass bottles next to bags of rock sugar, bags of the green ume and cardboard boxes of liquid. I tore off one of the instructional pamphlets and had Benny ask his co-workers about it.
They explained that ume, combined with the sugar and shochu, a 35 percent alcohol, will become plum liquor called umeshu. Umeshu sometimes is incorrectly called plum wine, but because it doesn't include the fermentation process, it isn't technically a wine. Sorry, Melinda, no Japanese wine for your visit.
The instructions were written in Japanese with a few diagrams. Benny's administrative assistant graciously translated the instructions for me. She said she doesn't make the traditional Japanese drink herself, but her grandmother does.
Japanese families normally make a batch of umeshu or the similar drink, plum vinegar, during June, according to my Google search of the topic. (What did people do before there was Google?) An ume has the texture of a unripe apricot more than the softness of a plum. The ume fruit is native to Japan and the best ume is said to grow in the Kyoto area.
I'm not sure where the two bags of ume fruit I bought were grown, but they had a nice solid green color so I'm assuming they are ready to become my moonshine.
Closely following our translated directions, I washed and dried the fruit. I easily removed the waxy stems using a toothpick.
Then my assistant, Benny took over. He layered fruit with the sugar. After the layers were set, he poured alcohol over the layers. Sealing the jar shut, we couldn't believe how easy the process was. We placed the jar in a dark, cool place under the stairs.
In six months the aged umeshu should be ready for consumption. From everything I read on the Internet about this Asia alcohol tells me that it will have a smooth sweet flavor. And "even people who don't like alcohol enjoy umeshu."
Like our Japanese neighbors, we are planning to celebrate New Year's Eve by pouring umeshu over ice cubes. Bottom's up to umeshu.
