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TODAY, I’d made a new discovery: Gramps had made alcoholic drinks as a hobby. But I highly doubted he’d made his drinks completely from scratch. If you wanted to make delectable alcoholic drinks, you needed the proper equipment, and the process—such as fermentation—was demanding too. Even if he’d made his own drinks, they probably hadn’t been anything too complicated, such as making fruit liqueur by pickling fruits in alcohol, with ume liqueur being a prime example.
Since this was the Beastly Wilds, an autonomous region, he could disregard the Japanese Liquor Tax Act—which prohibited certain types of homemade alcoholic drinks unless you had a license—to a certain extent, messing about without the necessary expertise would only lead to problems such as sabotaging his own health. Furthermore, since he hadn’t left behind the necessary tools or facilities, it was evident that he hadn’t gone down that rabbit hole.
Knowing that, Gramps must have crammed the shelves in this immediate area—actually, the shelves in a rather large area—with fruit liqueur and the like. Seriously, I can’t even imagine how many types of alcohol he made and collected.
When it comes to fruit liqueur, the most famous ones in Japan are probably ume liqueur, yuzu liqueur, and lemon liqueur. But of course, that’s only the tip of the iceberg—you can use lingonberry, apples, pineapples, strawberries, apricots, sumomo plums, Chinese quinces, mulberries, hardy kiwi, Japanese rowan berries, cherries, goji berries, and so on… Huh, now that I think about it, you’re more than spoiled for choice.
Other than that, there are a few variants that you can’t quite call fruit liqueur. Examples of some other things you can preserve in alcohol are: sesame seeds, black soybeans, Japanese pepper, ginger, shiitake mushrooms, mint, aloe vera leaves, and garlic.
I knew Gramps well enough to conclude that he’d likely binged on these types of liqueur, using the fact that they were apparently beneficial for your health as an excuse.
A voice pulled me back to reality from my lengthy thought process. “Are you gonna make alco-hall too, Mikura?” Kon, who’d sat cutely on one shelf, asked me.
“Well…” I muttered as I fell deep into thought again. After a moment of silence, I found my answer. “Nah, I don’t think I will. I am a casual drinker, and I don’t dislike alcohol or anything, but I don’t love it enough to make it for myself. If everyone wants to have some, I don’t mind dabbling in some ume liqueur. That said, when I consider Techi’s preferences and the drinking tendencies of the rest of the beastfolk, I kind of feel like they’ll prefer the beer that’s available in the supermarket. Especially since they love meat.”
Kon hummed. “Oh, you’re meant to pair meat with beer? I see… You’re not gonna make them…” He sounded somewhat disappointed. “I’ve never had any, but ume liqueur smells really sweet, and I liked the scent.”
I nodded. “Yeah, it’s a sweet alcoholic drink, so the smell would probably have a sweet hint if you’ve got a good nose. Ah, actually, I think I mentioned I’m planning on making some plum syrup. Mixing the right amount with some sparkling water will make a squash that tastes somewhat like ume liqueur. In the old days, this kind of plum squash was even available in stores. It was a delicious drink that even had sugary sweet pickled plums suspended inside.”
Kon’s eyes lit up. “Sweet plums? Like jam? And you put that inside your squash? Whoa… I’m a bit curious what it tastes like.” He looked up at me with large, innocent eyes.
The last time I’d mentioned plum syrup to him, he hadn’t been all that interested. In fact, he’d mentioned that jam was his jam, leaving all thoughts of syrup behind him. But now, plum syrup had belatedly caught his eye—he hadn’t managed to escape from its clutches after all.
I couldn’t suppress a smile as I replied, “Don’t you worry, I’ll make sure to get to work on plum syrup one of these days. Once I’m finished, we could make squash for everyone to enjoy, savor it as sweet plum jelly, or even turn it into plum sherbet. I read somewhere that plum syrup is also good for refreshing yourself during the sweltering summer heat, so you might end up having it almost every single day once summer arrives.”
Hearing that, Kon stopped looking at me with his pleading puppy-dog eyes, instead lifting his head and beaming brightly at me with elation. He then leaped down from the shelf, landed nimbly on his paws, then raced off into the distance. He made a beeline back to my house, as if ushering me to follow him.
Kon’s attitude clearly conveyed his silent message: Let’s get started right away! I couldn’t suppress a chuckle, and I ran after him with a big smile. I got back home, washed my hands, then went into the kitchen.
Wasting no time, I reached out to the reusable shopping bag I’d left lying on the counter and fished out the bag of unripe green plums I’d sneakily purchased in advance. During this season, no amount of plums in your inventory was enough—the more you had, the more little delicacies and preserves you could make from them. Even if you bought an enormous pile, none of it would go to waste, so I’d purchased some on my seafood shopping trip.
The first step in any recipe is to wash your ingredients. Wash and hull the plums. Thoroughly wipe moisture away with a tea towel. Once the unripe plums are ready, prepare the jars for your syrup.
While I was sterilizing the jar with alcohol, Kon called out to me. “Huh? You aren’t going to soak them this time?”
My hands worked on autopilot as I replied, “Nope, not for syrup. I’ve read that there’s no harm in doing it, but most of the recipes for plum syrup don’t mention any soaking steps from what I’ve read. The soaking is to remove the astringent flavor, but leaving it in can be a nice addition too, depending on what you’re making. When it isn’t strictly necessary, I try to avoid removing the natural flavors when I can.”
I continued as I finished meticulously sterilizing the jar, “So this time, I’m only going to wash the plums clean and hull them. I’ll set aside the damaged ones for jam and use all the rest. Oh, and making plum syrup is a breeze, I think you could try it out too, Kon.”
Tilt the jar at an angle and gently roll the plums inside. Of course, you’re free to drop them directly from above, but your plums might deform or discolor as they knock against the glass. Personally, I also don’t want to stick my hands into the sterilized jars because that’ll contaminate it again, which led to this particular habit.
Once you’ve got a good number of plums in your jar, hold it upright again and gently guide the plums to form a horizontal layer. Make sure there aren’t any gaps. Next, roll in rock candy until you form a layer of rock candy on top of the plum layer. Pile another layer of plums above that. Rinse and repeat to create alternating layers of plums and rock candy. When your jar is full or your plums run out, shut the lid tightly.
The moment I finished sealing the jar, I began tidying up. Seeing that, Kon blinked in confusion. “Huh? That’s it?”
As I cleaned, I nodded. “Yep, it’s that simple. After this, I only have to tilt and rotate the bottle two or three times every day so that the sweet liquid that forms doesn’t get all clumped in one place. During this step, make sure you’ve got an even spread of the liquid throughout the bottle. After roughly ten days, you’ll have your syrup in the bottle. From there, you let it sit in a cool, dark place and wait until it ages.” I paused. “Approximately a month and a half later, your delectable syrup will be ready for you to enjoy.”
Kon’s eyes widened. “A month and a half?! We’ve got to wait that long?! Aw, plums take way too long for everything! First umeboshi, now this!”
I chuckled merrily. “I mean, I get where you’re coming from, but sometimes, patience is necessary if you want the tastiest food possible. Well, I suppose if you’re really desperate to have it right away, you could choose to enjoy it early at the ten-day mark—at the point when the syrup hasn’t fully aged yet.
Remembering something, I added, “Ah, when your syrup’s fully aged after a month and a half, make sure to scoop out the plums with a ladle or a spoon and store them in a separate container. Leaving them inside the syrup for too long can sometimes give the syrup an unpleasant and harsh hint, which will kind of ruin it.”
Once I finished my lecture, Kon approached the jar filled with plums and rock candy. He stared at the contents unblinkingly. His gaze was intense. And then, he looked through the glass, drilling a hole into me with his intent stare. His features, warped and magnified by the angle of the glass, protested that he definitely couldn’t wait an entire month and two weeks—ten days was the limit.