Gourmand Dietary Culture

I have made a great discovery.

It is an even more valuable discovery to Professors of Intoxication than discoveries made through science. I discovered, in the back of my cupboard, old bottles of plum liquor [umeshu], dating from 1978 to 1981. The 1978 umeshu was made using kshochu, the 1979 one using brandy, the 1980 one using whiskey, and the 1981 one using Japanese sake.

To take the story back to around 1970. At that time, I was a typical night-owl. My daily rhythm involved me having a short nap after drinking with dinner, then waking and sitting by the table until close to daybreak, before diving into bed for a nightcap, and dozing off before having to get up for work again. After getting married, I moved into a house with a kitchen, so was able to enjoy cooking. Once nightwork was over, I would stand in the kitchen and prepare 3 or 4 dishes to enjoy with my nightcap. I would line up the plates on my pillow, lie on my belly, and enjoy a dinner party for one in my futon (Japanese style bedding). During my nightcap, I'd scatter the plates about untidily, and fall into a deep sleep. At some point, my wife would make a sound, and shut down the dawn-time dinner party. But I couldn't sleep without a nightcap. The only thing I could drink without a snack is umeshu. So, I'd swig umeshu from a beer jug. I would drink every night, so the amount of homemade umeshu I'd make was not negligible. The owner of the liquor shop, where I'd buy shochu with which to make umeshu from, was so surprised by the quantity that he once asked: "do you make your umeshu in a bathtub?" Aside from regular umeshu made with shochu and sugar-candy, I would use honey or brown sugar, whiskey, or brandy, to make various kinds of umeshu. Then I'd use the plums that had been soaked to make sherbet or jam. From the late 1980s, I stopped being a night-owl, so the quantity of umeshu I was drinking also dropped off. So little quantities of each year's left-over umeshu would lie sleeping, hidden in bottles.

The taste of 30-year-old umeshu is delicious. There is dark sediment at the bottom of the bottles, but the top layer is a thick amber liquid. They somehow taste a bit like sherry. There is a freshness from the scent of plums running through the smooth taste. The umeshu made with whiskey is particularly splendid. Compared to distilled liquors, the lower alcohol content in sake means the taste of the sake is overwhelmed by the plums, making for a slightly acidic harsh flavour.

The earliest record of umeshu appeared in the publication Honcho Shokkan (This Country's Paragon of Food), in 1697. This was a book for medical studies, so it also writes of the medicinal properties of umeshu, suggesting it "gets rid of phlegm, quenches thirst, encourages appetite, combats poison, and sooths sore throats." It suggests the way to make umeshu is to soak plums, which have been made less astringent through cooking, in old sake with white sugar for 20 days, after which it can be drunk. It also suggests that stuff "left for years is the best," but I imagine they didn't drink things left for as long as I left mine.

In the latter half of the Edo Period, many written documents comparing ways of making umeshu started to appear, but they all suggested using sake rather than shochu, and leaving it for 20 to 40 days before drinking. They seemed to think umeshu made with sake was best drunk quickly. Varieties of umeshu in the Edo Period included umeshu made with dried and desalinated plums, or umeshu made with hundreds of cherry blossom petals. Using white sugar, which gave a light flavour, seems to have been the usual method for making it. White sugar was a luxury, so umeshu made using a larger quantity of sugar was taken to be of superior quality. Umeshu made with shochu and sugar-candy didn't become standard until the Meiji Period and afterwards.

I have taken along a bottle of umeshu to parties I've been to in England. When I've served it up with soda as an aperitif before the meal, and offered it to people, straight, after the meal, they have enthusiastically said: "I didn't realise Japan had such fine liquor as this!"

Umeshu is a Japanese liquor to be proud of worldwide.