This year's ume (Japanese plum) has arrived and it's making
umeshu time! We can get good ume for making umeshu only at this time of year - we use unripe green ones for this and they need to be really fresh. Oh they smell beautiful.
Normally Umeshu is made with shochu or sake, but I love using brandy. This is my third year of making "brandy umeshu" - it's the best!
After about 10 hours, rock sugar start to melt and it looks like this.
And after a year (of waiting and tasting), this! Look how they've gone so smaller and wrinkly, all the good stuff has come out.
They don't really look so beautiful now... I probably should have taken the ume out sooner but anyway.
They say you can start drinking it after 3 months, but I wait at least for 6 months. When it's over a year old, it gets really good :) I always try to keep them for years but it's hard to resist and my 3-year-old umeshu is almost gone.... Can't wait till December to try my new umeshu now!!!
Check
Umeshu on Wikipedia, and
here is a really good all-you-need-to-know-about-umeshu post.
Ten to fifteen minuite walk from the 21st Centrury Museum, you find Shin-tatemachi shopping street 新竪町商店街. The street goes only for about 200 meters and it looks pretty deserted, but if you see carefully you find some interesting shops selling antiques and japanese homeware zakka made by local artists here and there along the way. Many of the buildings seen here are the traditional machiya (town house) style and throughout the street there is a really nostalgic feel to it. I wouldn't say it's a must-see place, but if you have some extra time it could be interesting to wonder around.
