No-alcohol umeshu (plum wine)

One might question if it makes sense from a naming convention alone to have non-alcoholic umeshu since the "shu" in umeshu is "alcohol". As the photo below shows - Choya has done it. But they've decided to use katakana for umeshu (ウメッシユ) instead of the normal kanji （梅酒) which must make it easier for people to accept.

I first saw non-alcoholic umeshu on a menu at a restaurant called かもん Kamon and it got my interest - as it would be great to make a non-alcoholic version of umeshu at home.  Later I discovered Choya made their version and tried a can, but it was not anything like normal umeshu.

After a web search I found you can make it at home and there are a few approaches.
- One uses just the plums and sugar or honey to make a plum syrup. You'll then mix the syrup in with a carbonated beverage or even just water to make your drink. Sounds like another post in the future.  And here it is, plum juice.
- Another version is called Honey Sour or Hachimitsu sour. What's interesting is that it uses vinegar. Can this possibly end well, when we mix plums, honey, and vinegar? Let's find out.

Below you'll see the ingredients.
- One 3 or 4L bottle
- 1kg (approximate) honey
- 1 kg plums
- 1 liter of vinegar. Any vinegar can be used, white, apple cider, rice vinegar, etc.

I used the same "kankou" plums that I used to make the normal umeshu.  All the plums for this purpose are already in 1kg bags in the Japanese markets.

Decided to use the apple cider vinegar since I have serious doubts about this turning out right and tasting good. Apple cider vinegar sounds much more appetizing than the others so we went with that.

Follow the same preparation guidelines that you would for normal umeshu with regard to cleaning and sterilizing the bottle and cleaning and drying the ume.

Place the ume into the container, add the honey and the vinegar and you're done. Place in a dark cabinet, lower shelf (it's cooler).

Mix gently periodically over the next week as the honey will tend to settle.

Remove the plums after 3 to 4 weeks after osmosis has extruded the ume flavor and your plums have (likely) wrinkled. Supposedly they can be eaten just like the ones from normal umeshu.

Use it by adding some carbonated beverage like ginger ale or just club soda and ice.

Will let you know how it turns out.  It only takes 3-4 weeks so it's a much faster process than normal umeshu.

After adding the honey

Honey and vinegar

July 1, 2013

1 July 2013 update: After a little more than a week the honey is starting to mix in nicely. It took a lot of mixing the first few days as the honey kept toward the bottom. The smell is getting better too. Can still detect the vinegar but it is less pronounced. I believe this experiment is heading in the right direction...A few more weeks and it will be done.

8 July update: Can still detect the vinegar smell but it's not strong. I tasted it - not too bad. Another 10 days and we'll call it finished.

17 August: OK I did finish up the process last month as promised and it has had another month to "mellow." This way of making plum wine will only appeal to a few I think. As some Japanese have posted online, it is a good thirst quencher on a very hot day. And I think if you mixed it with some ginger ale or white soda, it would in fact be great after a 5 mile run in the August heat of Japan, if you had no other drink options available and you're tongue was dry as sandpaper. I'm being unfair as it was not that bad, but as for me, I will try to slowly finish what I made. The vinegar is suppressed but there is no doubt that it's there. It's like drinking a sweet vinegar. Below is a picture of the final product placed into a banana umeshu bottle I had. Even that was not enough to trick my mind.  The ume-juice though is another story. It too is no alcohol and does taste good.

You can search the internet for non-alcoholic umeshu that is made with vinegar and many of the posts say "hey this was good" and "my kids are even drinking it" - well I'm having a hard time buying it... :-) So if you're confused you'll just have to try it on yourself!  I think that I just have to mix it with a bit more soda water. I've been trying it at nearly full strength.

Update: Sept 2013. I was wondering around a Yokohama food basement, Takeshimaya (a really cool place if you like to see creativity in food) and came across a place called Oaks Heart, Special Vinegar Shop. So I tried some samples they were handing out and they were quite tasty.  I tried Muscat (a type of grape I believe) and one other. Not surprisingly these were much better than my home brew.

There brochure explains the background and development of dessert vinegars as they call it. Oxymoron perhaps, but surprisingly I think it works to a degree. 

Oaks Heart Special Vinegar Shop - Takeshimaya

The brochure goes on to introduce the worlds first "Sumurie." Word origin: Su 酢 from the Japanese word meaning "vinegar" and from the French word Sommelier. Below you can see important milestones in his life. His official title is Sumurie No. 0001. ( 酢ムリエ　No. 0001 according to their Japanese website)

You might want to get a bottle or two and try it out. They have apparently  mastered how to make vinegar out of fruit. Nearly all their stores can be found in the Takeshimaya Department Store chain. Just head to those awesome food basements and enjoy.

Missionary of Vinegar - Uchibori Mituyasu

My homemade stuff

The non-alcoholic umeshu from Choya does not taste like the normal umeshu. To me it resembles the taste of ginger ale with only a little ume flavor. 

Below, Kirin also offers a non-alcoholic ume chu-hi that they call Zero-Hi. Has a whopping 1% ume fruit juice content. Haven't tried it but it's available at most stores.