Chinese Plum Wine
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Chinese plum wine served on ice
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Chinese Plum Wine (Simplified Chinese: 梅酒 or 青梅酒; Pinyin: Méi jiǔ / Qīngméi jiǔ; also meizi jiu 梅子酒) is a sweet-and-sour drink made from the green fruit of the mei tree (Prunus mume, known in English as Chinese plum or Japanese apricot). Most plum wine is made by steeping unripe plums with sugar in a base spirit or rice wine; some is made by fermenting the fruit itself. It is the Chinese relative of Japanese umeshu and Korean maesil-ju.[1][2]
Origin and region
The mei tree is native to southern China and has been cultivated for its fruit and blossoms for thousands of years; the fruit is too sour to eat raw and is instead preserved, made into plum sauce, or smoked and dried (乌梅) to flavour the summer drink Suanmeitang. Steeping fruit in alcohol is an old Chinese practice, and green-plum wine is made today in plum-growing counties of Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Sichuan and Taiwan, as well as at home.[2]
Raw materials
- Green (unripe) mei plums
- Sugar — often rock sugar
- Base alcohol — clear Baijiu, rice spirit or Mijiu; fermented versions use the fruit juice itself
Overview only — not a recipe.
Production (overview)
For infused plum wine, washed green plums and sugar are sealed in a jar with a clear base spirit and left for several months while the fruit's acids and aroma move into the liquid. Commercial producers filter, adjust sweetness and strength, and bottle the wine; some keep the plums in the bottle. Fermented plum wines are made by crushing the fruit and fermenting the juice like other fruit wines.[1]
Style and taste
Plum wine is amber to golden, sweet and noticeably sour, with an almond-like note from the plum stones. It is usually drunk chilled, on ice or with soda, as an aperitif or after a meal, and is lower in alcohol than baijiu.
Culture
The best-known literary scene involving plums and wine comes from the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms: "discussing heroes over green plums and warm wine" (青梅煮酒论英雄), when Cao Cao invites Liu Bei to drink and asks who the true heroes of the age are. In the story the green plums are served with warmed wine rather than steeped in it, but the phrase is widely linked with plum wine in China today. The episode is fiction written centuries after the events.[3]
A related early-summer drink in Jiangnan is bayberry wine (杨梅酒), made by steeping red bayberries (Myrica rubra) in spirit; it is a different fruit from mei.[4]
Notes
- "Plum wine" in English can also mean European-plum brandies or fruit wines; Chinese and Japanese plum wine use Prunus mume.
- This page makes no health claims, gives no prices and is not a home-infusion guide.