Summer Drinks

I got busy in the kitchen today with one of my favorite summer rituals.  Though we won't be enjoying this year's batch for a little while, the next batch of Ume Shu (plum wine??) is underway.  I always think I should make a batch of ume-boshi (pickled Japanese plums) but end up stopping after making Ume Shu.  A chilled glass of it with soda water is a real treat to top off a muggy summer day.

 Our version is roughly 1 kg of ume, 1.8 liters of brandy for fruit wine, and roughly 500 g of crystal sugar.  This year, after reading the package on the brandy box, I decided to try a batch of Lemon Shu (3 lemons, 1.8 liters of the brandy, and about 200 g of crystal sugar).  Hoping that turns into a tart but sweet tasting drink! It needs to sit a few weeks, so will let you know later how it turned out!

These are "ume" or Japanese plums.  Whether they are actually plums or apricots is actually a small matter of debate, however, rinse these, dry them off, remove any stem bits that are left and poke a few holes in them for maximum flavor.  Then, pop them into the jar.

The other two ingredients are crystal sugar (like rocks of sugar) and brandy.  This type of brandy is for the fruit liquors/wines, and there are recipes for fruit including apples, strawberries and biwa (kumquats?).  An alternative to brandy is "White liquor" but we didn't like the flavor of that as well.

Here are the "finished" products; lemon on the left and ume on the right.  I usually let my ume-shu "sit" for about half a year (enjoying last year's now!) and then remove the shriveled up ume, and enjoy a few sips from then, too! I did double the recipe this year.... The lemon-shu recipe calls for leaving the lemon and lemon peel for at least two weeks...we'll give it a taste test then! 

Kampai!