Episode 99 Show Notes
Episode 99. Ripening in May each year, Japanese plums have a brief window of being in season. Brewers take advantage of this delicious fruit to make an ever popular style of sake known as “Ume-shu” a.k.a. plum sake. We’re not talking about sticky and cloyingly sweet chemical plum wine here but rather a lightly sweet, tart and low alcohol elixir that is made by soaking whole plums in premium sake. These styles of premium umeshu have complexity and go down smooth as silk. John and Timothy dive feet first into the world of plum sake. And beyond simply tasting, they also look at some easy cocktail recipes that use umeshu as a base. There is a lot to explore and talk about, so do join us this week as we plumb the depths of all things Umeshu! #sakerevolution
Skip to: 00:19 Hosts Welcome and Introduction
Welcome to the show from John and Timothy
Skip to: 1:55 Discovering Umeshu
Skip to: 13:43 Sake Introduction and Tasting: Ichinokura Himezen Junmai Genshu Umeshu
Ichinokura Himezen Junmai Genshu Umeshu
Brewery: Ichinokura
Classification: Umeshu
Alcohol: 8.0%
Prefecture: Miyagi
Seimaibuai: 65%
SMV: -80.0
Brand: Ichinokura
Acidity: 7.5
Importer: Wismettac (USA)
NOTE: Use Discount Code “REVOLUTION” for 10% off your first order with Tippsy Sake.
Skip to: 24:02 Umeshu Cocktails
View Ichinokura Easy Umeshu Cocktail Recipes.
All recipes are © Ichinokura Shuzo:https://ichinokura.co.jp/pickup-product/himezen (Japanese)
Princess Princess
・ Himezen Umeshu ………… 60ml
・ Fresh orange juice ………… 20ml
Pour 60 ml of Himezen and 20 ml of fresh orange juice into a chilled champagne glass and lightly stir.
Learn more:https://ichinokura.co.jp/pickup-product/himezen (Japanese)
Aoba Castle
・ Himezen Umeshu ………… 40ml
・ Green tea liqueur ………… 2 teaspoons
・ Lemon juice ………… 2 teaspoons
In a chilled glass, pour 40 ml of Himezenkiri, 2 teaspoons of green tea liqueur and 2 teaspoons of lemon juice, and lightly stir.
Learn more: https://ichinokura.co.jp/pickup-product/himezen (Japanese)
Buttons and ribbons
・ Himezen Umeshu ………… 50ml
・ Bourbon whiskey ………… 5ml
Pour 40 ml of Himezen and 5 ml of bourbon whiskey into a chilled glass and lightly stir.
Learn more: https://ichinokura.co.jp/pickup-product/himezen (Japanese)
Skip to: 30:32 Show Closing
This is it! Join us next time for another episode of Sake Revolution!
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Episode 99 Transcript
John Puma: 0:22
Hello, everybody, and welcome to Sake Revolution. This is America’s first and favorite sake podcast. I am your host, John Puma, who makes unsubstantiated claims about the popularity of his podcast. Uh, I am from the Sake Notes and also the administrator at everybody’s favorite internet Sake Discord. And on this show, I am the local sake nerd.
Timothy Sullivan: 0:51
And I’m your host Timothy Sullivan. I’m a Sake Samurai, sake educator, as well as the founder of the Urban Sake website and every week, John and I will be here tasting and chatting about all things sake and doing our best to make it fun and easy to understand.
John Puma: 1:08
Mm, Tim, I, I love that. We get to talk about all things sake every week. It is always a great time getting the chat sake with you.
Timothy Sullivan: 1:18
Yeah, I agree. And saying that we’re America’s favorite sake podcast is like an only child saying they’re the favorite child.
John Puma: 1:27
is it true? Damn by fame praise, perhaps, but accurate oh, I think
Timothy Sullivan: 1:37
technically true. Let’s say it’s technically true.
John Puma: 1:40
technically the truth
Timothy Sullivan: 1:42
America’s only and favorite
John Puma: 1:45
So, um, Mr. Sake, educator, what is in store for us this week? What kind of sake are we gonna be talking about?
Timothy Sullivan: 1:55
Well, we have a plum assignment this week. We are going we are going
John Puma: 2:00
wait a minute. You can’t gloss over that. a plum assignment. Huh?
Timothy Sullivan: 2:07
I couldn’t resist.
John Puma: 2:08
We couldn’t resist. All right.
Timothy Sullivan: 2:10
We are going to be talking about one of the sweetest sakes out there this week is all about Umeshu. AKA plum sake.
John Puma: 2:21
Umeshu. Yes. so plum, they, they much like they like to call sake rice wine, and it’s not entirely accurate. They like to call this plum wine
Timothy Sullivan: 2:33
Yes.
John Puma: 2:35
And that’s in my understanding also. Not entirely accurate.
Timothy Sullivan: 2:39
yeah, I’ve had, I remember in my college years I had many inexpensive servings of chicken lo mein at the local Chinese restaurant and then some. Plum wine wound up in my hands and who knows what it really was, they do call it plum wine. Uh, there are many variations of this plum infused alcohol.
John Puma: 3:01
Hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 3:01
It could be, uh, shochu base. It could be a sake base. It could be another mystery alcohol base ethanol base, but
John Puma: 3:11
Uh, mystery base.
Timothy Sullivan: 3:13
yeah.
John Puma: 3:14
Okay.
Timothy Sullivan: 3:15
Yeah, but, uh, we’re gonna, we’re gonna be tasting. A nihonshu sake based umeshu today. Yeah.
John Puma: 3:25
That sounds cool. apart from your, Excursions to inexpensive late night, uh, Chinese takeout, places in your college years.
Timothy Sullivan: 3:35
Hmm.
John Puma: 3:36
What, uh, other exposure had you had to, umeshu in the past?
Timothy Sullivan: 3:42
Well, I think when I first started getting into sake and I don’t know if this is true for you, John, but when I was first going to like sake, pairing dinners or sake events, when the dessert course came around, very often, they would serve Umeshu or plum sake with dessert course, ’cause it is so sweet. Have you had that experience?
John Puma: 4:02
um, a little bit, most of my, experiences have been in the more of the, the, uh, trade show sort of situations where people will have some, it’s like, oh, let me try this. It’s a little different, a little something, a little, little unusual. And, and it’s usually a pretty pleasant experience, but like you said, it is sweet and, and it does have that, that, that alongside your dessert sort of idea your, Your Sherry it’s like kinda like Sherry and, and that’s something you’re gonna have, that’s gonna be, Sweet’s gonna go after dinner with your dessert and that’s usually been my experiences, with it.
Timothy Sullivan: 4:40
well, maybe we should describe for our listeners in a general sense how umeshu is made using sake. And when I worked at a sake brewery in Niigata, I actually was involved with making umeshu. And I can tell you how we did it at that brewery. And then we can talk about some of the variations that exist out there. So basically when you think about UME, UME is plum, of course. And if you go to the grocery store and you pick up a plum, that is very different from what they have in Japan to make umeshu
John Puma: 5:17
So you’re saying, I can’t just go and get a bunch of plums at the store and make my own inmates at home.
Timothy Sullivan: 5:22
You could, but it’s, it’s very different. The, plums, the umes that we get in the grocery store in America are soft and juicy and thin skinned and ready to eat. The plums that they use primarily to make Umeshu in Japan are tiny, they’re green, and they’re very, very hard and they’re not really. Ripe in the sense that we would have an American plum. So they’re very different. And the first thing you do when you get all the plums is that you go through with a little toothpick and you have to pull out if there’s a Woody little nobbin or a little stem sticking at the top of the fruit. You have to use a little toothpick and pull that out. So you can’t have any bit of the stem or where the stem meets the fruit that has to be completely clean. So you do that. You have to be very careful not to pierce the fruit either. Cuz if you Pierce it, it’s not usable. Uh, cuz it can spoil more easily that way. So you have to have a perfectly, a blemish free fruit without the stem in it. And then they’re washed. And then from here on, it’s really simple, you take them and you dump them whole into a vat of finished sake
John Puma: 6:33
Oh,
Timothy Sullivan: 6:33
and you soak them
John Puma: 6:35
that sounds pretty interesting. Sounds like sounds like you’re making sake Sangria at that point.
Timothy Sullivan: 6:40
Yes, yes. Yes, it is. Uh, plum sangria. And then when is time to bottle it basically, you, siphon the infused sakeoff of the plums, and that is your Umeshu. So you basically soak. These intensely flavored plums in finished sake. That’s that’s the basics of it for, for Japanese sake.
John Puma: 7:11
Wow. Yeah. So, so it’s not too far off from this sangria concept, but that’s, that’s pretty interesting. And, um, One thing I came across was the idea that this is so, so while making sake at home in Japan is, is not legal. Making Umeshu at home because you’re, you’re not getting a whole lot of alcohol out of just the sitting UME is totally something that like, you know, your grandma does in Japan every, every year goes and like makes a big jar of a, of Umeshu and that’s. That’s really interesting. I think it’s like, kind of it’s it’s Yeah. It’s not something I, it’s not a bit information you usually come across. I think that’s kind of fun. That’s like, you know, in a place where most home alcohol making is really not a thing, but you know, but, but, but grandma can make her, you
Timothy Sullivan: 8:11
Well, grandma is infusing existing alcohol with a fruit. So they’re not really no, no fermentation happen is happening. No, no booze is being made. You’re just flavoring the booze you bought at the grocery store, but one key difference it. I agree with you, John. It is so common. For families in Japan to have a jar of umeshu going in their kitchen or have it in their pantry. So it’s very common in Japanese families to infuse your own umeshu. But in most cases, they’re actually using shochu as a base.
John Puma: 8:47
Hmm. And when they use shochu, is there any like specific cause we know shochu can be based off of a variety of
Timothy Sullivan: 8:55
Hmm.
John Puma: 8:56
uh, of different products, like, you know, barley or, buck wheat or, or even rice. I. Do they typically use any specific type or is that just kind of up in the air when they’re doing show too?
Timothy Sullivan: 9:09
That’s a great question. I really don’t know what the preferred type of shochu is, but there are inexpensive kind of neutrally shochus. You you’ve been to a Japanese convenience store. They have the bulk inexpensive ones. And I think that the other component that they very often add for the whole homemade grandma style, umeshu is rock sugar. So the ingredients are. Cheap show you rock sugar and whole Japanese green plums, and you throw those together and let it sit for two months, plus, and then you’ve got Umeshu, or actually you can let it go much longer than that. I think it’s months and months you can let it go.
John Puma: 9:52
Wow. All right. That’s interesting. Does, when you let it sit for, for longer, does any, does any fermentation start to happen? Cuz you are kind of keeping these things in the jar. Uh, and I find that when you take organic components and stuff like that, you leave them sitting around with some sugars, things happen.
Timothy Sullivan: 10:11
No. I think the alcohol is already too high for any microbes to like, Have a fighting chance in there. so
John Puma: 10:19
The microbes get a little too drunk. They can’t do it.
Timothy Sullivan: 10:23
So, um, uh, yeah, so that the, the shochu version is kind of a home brew, uh, very countryside colloquial way of making plum sake and the, uh, Japanese nihonshu or sake infused from the breweries. That’s something you’ll often see for sale from sake breweries. And, uh, they have different alcohol percentages. The, the one that comes from nihonshu from sake is a little bit lighter and a little bit generally like lower alcohol under, under 10% for sure.
John Puma: 11:00
Right. All right. Yeah. That’s, that’s probably something that we should touch on also. So when they’re shochu based, are they usually a bit higher or they usually dance around that less than 10%, even there.
Timothy Sullivan: 11:11
No, they’re at the they’re at the alcohol level that the shochu that,
John Puma: 11:15
So they stay there. So if the show choose 35%, they hang out at 35% umeshu.
Timothy Sullivan: 11:20
Yeah, I think so. I think so. Yeah. Or maybe they add water. I’m not sure. I’ve, I’ve never made shochu based umeshu myself.
John Puma: 11:31
Ah, I, I didn’t realize that, umeshu was. part of your, your sake, uh, educational experience over at Hakkaisan.
Timothy Sullivan: 11:39
Yes, it was. Yeah. And I will put some pictures on the show notes at SakeRevolution.com. If you want to see. The process that we use there, you can see what these green Japanese plums look like and a little bit of how they go into the tank and how they get cleaned. And it’s a really interesting process. And, uh, if anyone wants to experiment with infusing plums at home, I think it’s a pretty straightforward process.
John Puma: 12:08
Hmm. I might have to, I might have to tinker with that. Just a, just a tiny bit, just to kind of see what happens. Right.
Timothy Sullivan: 12:15
Yeah. But, we have a lot of really good plum sakes made from nihonshu made from sake here in the states, and we’re gonna be tasting a delicious plum sake today.
John Puma: 12:30
Nice. I am. I’m excited about this. I don’t have that much, uh, umeshu here. I think the last time, I think the last time I’ve had, umeshu, was, was probably the last time I was in Japan. Uh, there’s a, umeshu bar that I stumbled into. uh, they happened into, in, um, it’s like an umeshu izakaya in shibuya and I didn’t, I thought it was going to be more of like a sake izakaya. And then we get in, we sit down and we find out that it’s, it was like, like, you know, it’s 50 different varieties of umeshu. We’re like what? That’s interesting. So yeah, we tried some, it was fun. It was a nice little, uh, experience.
Timothy Sullivan: 13:10
So you, you didn’t stumble into the bar. You stumbled out of the bar.
John Puma: 13:13
Well, you know, we say stumble when we, uh, weren’t playing to go there. It wasn’t like, I was like, this is the place right here. We were kind of walking down the street and like, oh, this looks nice. So, yeah, so you, so as you mentioned, we’ve got an umeshu that we’re gonna be, that we’re gonna be tasting, and this is a sake base, cuz this is sake revolution after
Timothy Sullivan: 13:36
is not, this is not shochu and rock sugar revolution. No, no, no.
John Puma: 13:40
be our, our second show.
Timothy Sullivan: 13:43
All right. So Mr. Puma, would you like to give the good folks at home, the run of this, umeshu that we have.
John Puma: 13:53
I would love to actually. So this, umeshu, is actually, uh, from one of my favorite Miyagi Prefecture, breweries, Ichinokura. We’ve talked about them a little bit. We talked about ’em a few weeks ago. We were talking about, Miyagi Prefecture and, and Sendai and all that other fun stuff. Um, apparently, uh, ichinokura is 30 miles to the north of Sendai City. Uh, they started in, uh, 19. 73. So technically we’re not gonna get that super old brewery out of this, but each oor means like ACE brewery or it’s usually how they like to translate it. And the way it came about in 73 was actually combined four local breweries. So it can, can kind of pretend that it’s older than 1973, I think, um,
Timothy Sullivan: 14:48
Well, we, we always joke that the breweries are older than the United States, but this brewer is actually younger than me. So that makes me feel good.
John Puma: 14:57
They are a very traditional brewery. They do everything by hand. Um, they are, they’re one of those, you know, one of those great, uh, sake breweries, even though. Don’t have the hundreds of years of history, just the 40, some odd years of history. So this is classified, uh, as a Junmai Genshu Umeshu, so. The sake base is Junmai it’s genshu. So it’s not water diluted and it’s umeshu the rice is tokyonishiki. Which Tim, are you familiar with that at all? Cause I’m not.
Timothy Sullivan: 15:32
I am not. I did read that it is harvested in Miyagi. So this is a Miyagi grown. Rice, uh, but don’t know a whole ton about it. So toyonishiki.
John Puma: 15:42
Right. And, um, the seimaibuai on that rice is 65%. Uh, So fairly right there in June, my territory, the acidity is wow. 7.5 and the sake meter value. Get ready to. have your socks blown off, cuz it’s negative 80.
Timothy Sullivan: 16:07
Wow.
John Puma: 16:07
Yeah. That’s extreme, Tim
Timothy Sullivan: 16:11
Yeah.
John Puma: 16:13
Um, And alcohol percentage is eight. As you pointed out, this is generally speaking, a lower alcohol product.
Timothy Sullivan: 16:20
Right?
John Puma: 16:21
8%.
Timothy Sullivan: 16:23
All right.
John Puma: 16:24
Yeah, So I’m excited about this. This is interesting. I’ve I have never had this particular, umeshu product before. So we have our bottle gonna pour some of it into our wine glass.
Timothy Sullivan: 16:44
got it in the glass.
John Puma: 16:45
I’ve got it in the glass and the, the first thing I’m noticing here, Tim, this is light for an umeshu. Mostly OSU I’ve seen has a more of a, more of a, a darker complexion to it. And this is. A little bit light. I mean, I’ve seen, we’ve had some sakes on the show that were this color.
Timothy Sullivan: 17:06
Yeah, the, the color is almost like a super light blush or rose wine. It’s got.
John Puma: 17:12
light blush. Yeah,
Timothy Sullivan: 17:14
Yeah, it’s got just a hint of this yellow golden cast to it, but it is not like the, the plum wine from the Chinese restaurant, which is like golden and sticky. This is like more translucent, very light cast of, uh, golden champange-y color. And, uh, just really, uh, looks you’re you’re right. It looks like they’re taking a very light hand with the, with the infusion.
John Puma: 17:42
I’m I’m really impressed. I, I was expecting that more, that deeper golden hue.
Timothy Sullivan: 17:48
All right, let’s give it a smell.
John Puma: 17:51
Oh wow.
Timothy Sullivan: 17:53
Hmm.
John Puma: 17:53
it smells like candy, Tim.
Timothy Sullivan: 17:55
Hmm. It smells fruity. Plumy stone fruity. Like if you think about apricot plum, those stone fruits, it’s really got that kind of intense
John Puma: 18:08
Hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 18:09
fruity aroma. And concentrated like rich, rich
John Puma: 18:13
Very, very, wow. Yeah. I, it is very intense and very fruity on the nose. I kind of like it though, I guess. It’s that, that very candied. Very strong aroma but very nice. If you’re into that sort of thing, if you’re not, if you don’t have a sh if you don’t have a sweet tooth, this probably isn’t the beverage for you. it’s my, that’s my takeaway from this aroma right now. All right, you’re ready to have a sip.
Timothy Sullivan: 18:45
Yep. Let’s go for it. Hmm.
John Puma: 18:49
That’s tart.
Timothy Sullivan: 18:51
It’s tart and it’s juicy. It tastes like sipping on juice to me.
John Puma: 18:59
mm-hmm
Timothy Sullivan: 19:02
It’s very low alcohol. There is the sweetness really predominates for me.
John Puma: 19:07
yeah, this is like a sweet plum juice. Like
Timothy Sullivan: 19:10
sweet plum juice. Absolutely. And I know that they’ve pumped up the acidity to balance out that sweetness. So it’s not, it’s not like the sweetness takes over completely. Oh, now I’m getting the aftertaste, John and I’m getting a little bit of warmth. So the 8% is coming through on the finish for me.
John Puma: 19:30
very nice. And it is when I saw that minus 80, I was like, oh God. Uh, so.
Timothy Sullivan: 19:35
Yeah.
John Puma: 19:36
It is being balanced quite nicely by that high acidity. And yeah, it really comes through just don’t get me wrong. This is intensely sweet. And part of me kind of wishes. I put some of this on the rocks. I feel like that would go a really long way with this to making it, uh, more of a, more of a cocktail kind of experience. Um, what do you think of that? Um,
Timothy Sullivan: 20:04
I love that idea. I’ve had this in the fridge at, 45 degrees Fahrenheit or whatever. And I, it crossed my mind exactly what you said. Like, I wish this was ice cold, like
John Puma: 20:16
Yeah.
Timothy Sullivan: 20:17
on the rocks or almost out of the freezer. I think it would be. even crisper and just bringing even more into balance if it was even more chilled
John Puma: 20:28
Yeah. And I actually, I think that the ice would also help to. Would end up diluting things a little bit, which I don’t think is a bad thing here. I kind of like the idea of mellowing it slightly opening it up a little bit. It kind of reminds me of like, when people say, oh, have, you know, this particular type of scotch have, have some ice with it, it’ll open it up like that. I can definitely see that from this as well. Uh, But, uh, you know, this is nice. This is a lot less in your face than a lot of other, umeshu I’ve had over the years. Like this is so much more subtle. And I realize that a lot of the descriptors were using to talk about this have not been extremely subtle, but for, umeshu they’re subtle, like it’s
Timothy Sullivan: 21:11
yes. Yeah.
John Puma: 21:11
like Umehsu. Doesn’t travel in subtle circles, but this is, is as close as you’re gonna get. I think from this type of product,
Timothy Sullivan: 21:18
There are a few differences between this ichinokura, umeshu and the traditional sake production method I talked about before. So the first one is that this particular Umeshu from ichinokura they use yellow plums from Miyagi handpicked. Ripe yellow plums. So the, the plum base that they use is a slightly different fruit. The green plum that I described before, I think often comes from wakayama, which is a home base for plum production, plum farming.
John Puma: 21:52
so
Timothy Sullivan: 21:52
And they’re using
John Puma: 21:53
of plum. Okay.
Timothy Sullivan: 21:54
yeah, slightly different type of plum yellow plum. And, and the other thing is that I read. That Ichinokura uses a concentrate of plum. So they don’t soak the whole plums. They make a concentrate and then mix that in. So it’s a slight variation on the production method.
John Puma: 22:12
Okay, nice. Now I’ve seen, I’ve seen umeshus. This is a question, a burning question. I have actually. So I’ve seen umeshus before where the plum is still like, or there’s plums in the bottle.
Timothy Sullivan: 22:23
yes.
John Puma: 22:24
Um, Can I eat those
Timothy Sullivan: 22:27
Uh, that’s a good question. We need to, we need to get an, um, issue expert on the podcast, cuz I, I assume yes. I assume.
John Puma: 22:36
Have you done it?
Timothy Sullivan: 22:37
no, I’ve never eaten
John Puma: 22:38
All right. My understanding is that you can’t eat them, as well. I, but I’ve never tried it. I wasn’t sure. if it was a bad idea. I figured I’d ask you. Um, and with The you know, that sangria concept. I mentioned earlier, Like when you have apples that have been soaking in sangria for any length of time, the alcohol’s in those apples and is going to hit you later. it’s gonna take a little while, but you are going to, um, your body is gonna process the alcohol that’s in the apples. So I imagine you’ll probably do the same thing for the plum.
Timothy Sullivan: 23:11
totally. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that the brands that sell, umeshu with a few plums still in the bottle that really speaks to that home homemaking method that we talked about before, you know, grandma in the pantry with putting the plums in the jar. And that is really what that kind of evokes I think.
John Puma: 23:35
Nice.
Timothy Sullivan: 23:36
Yeah.
John Puma: 23:37
I like it. This is pretty cool. I like that. We kinda. Got out of our comfort zone today, Tim
Timothy Sullivan: 23:45
Yeah, something a little different. Now, how we talked about serving umeshu with dessert, how would you wanna have umeshu at your house?
John Puma: 23:58
Well, I mentioned earlier that my immediate thought was, oh, I want some ice with this, but.
Timothy Sullivan: 24:05
Hmm.
John Puma: 24:05
I also have this other idea because it is so concentrated and rarely powerful. What do you think of maybe making a cocktail out of this?
Timothy Sullivan: 24:15
Ooh.
John Puma: 24:16
You know,
Timothy Sullivan: 24:17
I think that’s an amazing idea. If I remember correctly, Ichinokura has a few cocktail recipes on the product page for this product.
John Puma: 24:28
That’s awesome. I, I did not look that I did not I did no research ahead of time into the cocktail suggestion. Uh, I only got the, you know, stats and all that, so that’s, that’s interesting.
Timothy Sullivan: 24:41
Let me give you, a quick translation of one of the cocktails that they recommend, and you can see if this might, so the first one, oh, this, this could not be easier. I think even you can make this cocktail, Puma,
John Puma: 24:58
What wait, what did I was a bartender
Timothy Sullivan: 25:00
I’m just kidding. is, well, maybe this is more of a cocktail for me. It’s called princess princess.
John Puma: 25:07
Princess. Princess.
Timothy Sullivan: 25:09
and it is 60 milliliters of Himezen umeshu and 20 milliliters of fresh squeezed orange juice. And you mix them together and pour into a champagne glass.
John Puma: 25:24
Tim that’s in mimosa. That’s
Timothy Sullivan: 25:25
end.
John Puma: 25:27
that’s an ume mimosa.
Timothy Sullivan: 25:31
should we try one more?
John Puma: 25:32
Now don’t get me wrong. The Umay mimosa has potential
Timothy Sullivan: 25:36
Okay.
John Puma: 25:36
ume-, mimosa, ume-osa?. I don’t know.
Timothy Sullivan: 25:40
Okay. So this one, oh, this is interesting. This is named after, uh, a castle in Miyagi. So we’ll call this one castle castle. This is, uh, Himezen 40 milliliters green tea, liqueur two teaspoons and two teaspoons of lemon juice.
John Puma: 26:01
The green tea liqueur is going to have all fun with this. I think.
Timothy Sullivan: 26:07
Yeah.
John Puma: 26:09
All right.
Timothy Sullivan: 26:10
Yeah. So those are, I mean, obviously they’re keeping it really straightforward and very simple, but I agree with you. Oh, we have one more. This, this is a third cocktail recommended by Ichinokura. This one is called buttons and ribbons
John Puma: 26:24
I love the name.
Timothy Sullivan: 26:27
and uh, this is, uh, 50 milliliters of Himezen Umeshu and then five milliliters of bourbon whiskey.
John Puma: 26:35
all right. I’m here.
Timothy Sullivan: 26:36
Okay. I got your attention.
John Puma: 26:38
I can, I can make this one tonight. right. so bourbon
Timothy Sullivan: 26:43
yep. You mix, uh, the Ichinokura Himezen Umeshu, and then you mix a small amount of bourbon whiskey together.
John Puma: 26:52
and That’s it?
Timothy Sullivan: 26:53
That’s it?
John Puma: 26:55
I thought there was gonna be like a, a little more to it, but that sounds great. my first thought was something like that was a bourbon or like a, um, whiskey bourbon’s already a little sweet. So I was thinking something that’s not inherently sweet and then maybe using this and bring out a little bit. And that, that sounds nice.
Timothy Sullivan: 27:12
Yeah. You know what? My, my inclination is, is to put this in the freezer. I it’s low alcohol,
John Puma: 27:20
8%. so what’s gonna happen to it.
Timothy Sullivan: 27:21
it’s going to become like a slushy.
John Puma: 27:24
Ooh, sounds
Timothy Sullivan: 27:25
love to, I’d love to put it in a little, uh, bowl and freeze it and then scoop it into dessert cups and eat it like a, um, you know, like a, um, mate UME, sorbet. I think it would make UME sorbet, honestly.
John Puma: 27:40
oh, right. That sounds like fun. That that’s gonna be nice for like a nice hot summer day
Timothy Sullivan: 27:46
Yes, yes.
John Puma: 27:47
and spring. It’s officially spring, Tim.
Timothy Sullivan: 27:50
Is it really.
John Puma: 27:50
It is officially spring. It doesn’t necessarily feel like spring yet, but it’s officially spring.
Timothy Sullivan: 27:57
This isn’t one of those New York city fake out Springs where it’s gonna get really cold tomorrow. Is it
John Puma: 28:02
Tim. It’s always a fake out spring. You know, that, that’s how it works here. It’s we, we get, we get, oh, it’s spring. Oh. And then it’s gone. And then, you know, and then we get a blizzard. And then the day after the blizzard, it’s 80 that’s, that’s how it goes. And then we do, and then we do an episode on hot sake. it’s 95 degrees out.
Timothy Sullivan: 28:25
that’s our, that’s the sake revolution way…
John Puma: 28:27
That is a sake revolution way. Yes.
Timothy Sullivan: 28:30
I had one more thought on this umeshu, uh, you know, you talked about sangria and that was like percolating in my mind, but I’m like, what about making sangria with this umeshu? Like taking other fruit, it’s cutting them up. Putting them in with the ichinokura, umeshu and soaking like apple and grape and a few slices of pair and infusing additional fruit flavors in. What do you think about that?
John Puma: 28:58
So here’s what I’m gonna tell you, Tim, I’m gonna do this.
Timothy Sullivan: 29:01
okay.
John Puma: 29:03
And I’m gonna let you know what happens in a couple of weeks in a couple weeks. I’ll get on the show and I will tell you how the experiment went, cuz we’re definitely gonna do this. Sounds great. I’m sold 100%. I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna do the bourbon too. And, and we’ll do like a little like catch and see how these little experiments go. Do you wanna do the, the princess
Timothy Sullivan: 29:19
Of course
John Puma: 29:20
and do the CA do you, do you have any, do. you have any green tea liqueur?
Timothy Sullivan: 29:24
I don’t,
John Puma: 29:25
Oh, alright.
Timothy Sullivan: 29:26
I’m fresh out. I’m fresh out of green tea liqueur.
John Puma: 29:28
I’ve got bourbon and I’ve got.
Timothy Sullivan: 29:30
Okay.
John Puma: 29:31
The ability to make sangria. I’ve got plenty sangria ingredients here.
Timothy Sullivan: 29:34
Well, I’ll do the orange juice one.
John Puma: 29:37
Okay.
Timothy Sullivan: 29:37
And then I’ll, I’ll also do the, the, um, the slushy, like I’ll, I’ll freeze it
John Puma: 29:41
Oh, fantastic. All right. So we’ll, we’ll reconvene and, and lead, you know, the lead into an episode down the line. We’ll Check back. in and talk about what our experiences were, making cocktails and other interesting things out of the, Himezen Ume. This is gonna be fun, right? I think it’s the first
Timothy Sullivan: 30:02
we’ve got our, sake homework cut out for us. the best kind of homework.
John Puma: 30:07
Oh yeah. That’s kinda homework. Yeah. Sake homework. all right.
Timothy Sullivan: 30:11
well this was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed. trying this ume- or plum infused sake, really surprising. And the thing that surprised me most was all the different ideas we had for enjoying this in different ways. So we will check in on that in a future episode, John, great to taste with you as always.
John Puma: 30:31
mm-hmm
Timothy Sullivan: 30:32
And I want to thank our listeners so much for tuning in. We really do hope that you’re enjoying Sake Revolution. I. If you would like to show your support for our show? The best way to support us now is to join our community on Patreon. We’re 100% a listener supported show and all the support that we receive from our patrons allows us to host, edit and produce a podcast for you each and every week.
John Puma: 30:56
That’s right. And if you wanna learn more about joining our Patreon, becoming a patron, you can visit patreon.com/SakeRevolution to find out more. We’ve got some tiers, we’ve got some fun things we like to do with our patrons, and we’d like to do them with you. So apart from that, though, you can also support us by leaving reviews on podcast platforms, such as apple podcasts. Believe it or not. That is still a really great way to get the word out about podcasts And get this show into new ears and also always tell your friends, tell your family and tell them to tell their friends and family. And then we get out there. That’s how it works.
Timothy Sullivan: 31:39
And as always to learn more about any of the topics or individual sakes we talked about in this or any of our episodes, be sure to visit our website SakeRevolution.com and there, you can see all the show notes and a written transcript for each and every episode.
John Puma: 31:55
And should you wish to reach out to us directly? Uh, or if you have sake questions that you need answered, we would very much like to hear from you. We’ve got an email address for you to do just that [email protected] if email’s not your thing, you can also slide into DMs over on. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for Instagram, we are @SakeRevolutionPod, and we are @SakeRevolution everywhere else, Google it you’ll find us. Uh, so until next time, Tim, please grab your glass, everybody home too. Please remember to keep a drinking sake and Kanpai!