Umeshu Recipe: How to Make Japanese Plum Wine

Umeshu is a Japanese liqueur made from the ume fruit, a green-yellow stone fruit similar to an apricot that's most famous for its role in umeboshi, pickled ume dyed pink with red shiso leaves. The alcoholic beverage made from these ume plums is also known as Japanese plum wine, although it's technically a liqueur (flavored liquor), not a fruit wine.

Umeboshi are salted plums and a type of tsukemono (pickle). Umeboshi is typically translated to “pickled plum,” but the literal translation is "dried ume." Ume is the Japanese term for Prunus mume, a type of apricot that originated in China. They are now grown in the town of Minabe in Japan’s Wakayama Prefecture and in California.

Raw ume fruit is acidic and bitter due to high levels of malic and citric acid. To make ume more palatable and to extend its shelf life, umeboshi makers coat the fruit sea salt (a natural preservative), soak it in its own juices, and then sun-dry it to achieve its characteristic wrinkly texture. Ume is yellow when ripe; pickled ume turns pink with the addition of red shiso leaves (also known as red perilla) during the pickling process.