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“Ume no mezame” (“plum awakening”)??
Plum is one of the first fruit flowers to emerge in the spring & in Japan people celebrate the coming of the beautiful blossom in a festival called hanami (“flower viewing”), with cherry (sakura) being the most famous, however many locals & older folk prefer to celebrate the earlier-unfurling plum (ume) blossom as it’s usually a bit more peaceful & less busy ♡
Wild plum-infused Roku gin
Plum sake
Ume shrub
Yuzu juice
Plum, twig & blossom bitters
Smoked sloe vodka
Egg white (optional)
This cocktail is lovely with or without the egg-white foam; fruity, sweet, sharp, smoky & with a touch of woodiness in the background ?
It might be nice with a dried plum-skin sugar round the rim of the glass, a nice idea for another time ♡
Wild plums are difficult to nail down a specific species as they all hybridise so readily, so I’m not sure exactly which type(s) I foraged for all these components! Most were purple or red though 🙂
Yuzu is a smallish yellow Japanese citrus fruit which tastes like a cross between mandarin & lime, while sake is a wine fermented using koji-inoculated rice & you can often find plum flavoured sake, something I love ordering when I eat out in a Japanese restaurant ♡
I included a few drops of sloe because the white blackthorn flowers are usually the very first plums to brave the frosty days of early spring, so huge thanks to the lovely Sarah @wild.feast who gifted me this precious li’l bottle of smoked sloe vodka a few years ago, it’s utterly delicious & a little goes a looong way ?
#ume #plum #wildcocktails #wildbooze #japanese #japan #sake #bitters #smoke #yuzu #foraging #wildfood #blossom #hanami #cocktails #mixology
