5 Amazing Umeshu (Plum Wine) Cocktail Recipes for the Holidays

Making cocktails with wine is nothing new. The French 75 is topped off with sparkling wine, and the New York sour takes a traditional whiskey sour and floats half an ounce of red wine on top of it to give it a gorgeous layering effect. In fact, one of the most famous cocktails in the world — the Manhattan — is made with sweet vermouth, which is a special type of fortified wine. Yet while using wine in cocktails is quite common, it’s not something we typically think about. However, it can really elevate the drinking experience, and using an “umeshu” (plum wine), with its rich and diverse plum flavors, can help you craft the perfect cocktails for the holiday season and beyond!

In this article, we provide you with five creative sake cocktails using some of the best plum wines. But before we dive into the drink recipes, we have to ask ourselves, “What exactly is umeshu?”

What is umeshu?

The literal Japanese translation for umeshu is “ume alcohol.” Ume is typically thought of as an Asian plum; in reality, ume is more closely related to an apricot than a North American plum, and has a much higher acidity. Ume is not only used to make umeshu, but appears in many other types of Japanese cocktails as well.

To further complicate things, the use of “-shu” implies that umeshu isn’t necessarily ume fruit that have been fermented into a wine. More commonly, umeshu is ume mixed into an alcoholic base, like sake or shochu — similar to how a Western-style liqueur is made. So while umeshu is typically translated to “plum wine,” that is really not the case. But because this is the term by which most Westerners know the beverage, Tippsy often uses it as well.

How is umeshu made?

You’ll most commonly see a shochu or sake base for umeshu. The base of umeshu can determine the overall level of sweetness and alcohol content. Umeshu made with a shochu base will generally have a higher ABV, and when made with a sake base, will lean towards a lower ABV. For these plum wine cocktails, we primarily focus on lower-ABV, sake-based umeshu.

Ume are steeped for a minimum of six months in their alcohol bases, usually alongside varying amounts of sugar, which helps heighten the sweet, plum-like flavor at the center. (A notable exception is Nanbu Bijin “Plum Sake,” which avoids using added sugar by employing all koji sake instead.) The sake cocktails below focus on a variety of different umeshu from several different breweries, including the world-famous Choya Umeshu. To showcase the wide range of Japanese plum wine, some cocktails are far sweeter than others, some have added flavors, and one is even spicy!

How to craft an umeshu cocktail

In Western culture, the concept of sugarplums is heavily associated with the holiday season. Since umeshu is typically a type of plum wine with added sugar, it is basically a sugarplum drink already! So today we’re focusing primarily on cocktails that are perfect to serve during Thanksgiving and onwards into the holidays and new year. However, Japanese plum wine can be enjoyed any time of year!

When crafting these cocktails, it is very important to note that the umeshu is always the primary focus of the drink. The strong ume flavor should remain distinct throughout, using festive ingredients, flavors and techniques simply to highlight and embolden the umeshu itself. So without further ado, let’s dive into these amazing sake cocktail recipes!

The Choya chai ume-tini

For our first cocktail, we’re making a chai ume-tini with Choya umeshu! The Choya Umeshu brewery is the most famous umeshu brewery. It is based in Osaka and prides itself on only using domestically grown fruit. It began growing wine grapes in 1914, but slowly shifted to focusing primarily on ume in 1959. Choya offers a distinct category of umeshu known as “honkaku umeshu,” which means no artificial additives or imitation ume are found within their products. In fact, this particular Choya product features real, whole ume fruit within each bottle — and yes, you can eat them!

Choya “Plum Wine” (With Fruit) boasts a rich and sweet plum flavor, and is the perfect base for an ume-tini! A traditional martini is made up of a base spirit and some variation in ratio of vermouth. For this ume-tini we use Choya as our base and stir it together with a white vermouth that has been infused with loose-leaf chai. White vermouth may look like dry vermouth, but it is much more floral and piney with hints of citrus, making it ideal to use in a holiday cocktail. To pack it with even more festive flavor, we infuse it with chai leaves to pull forth some cinnamon and cardamom notes.

Ingredients

• 2.5 ounces Choya “Plum Wine” (With Fruit)
• .75 ounce chai-infused Dolin Blanc vermouth*
• Stirred, served up with a star anise garnish

For this ume-tini, add 2.5 ounces of Choya “Plum Wine” (With Fruit) and .75 ounce of chai-infused Dolin Blanc vermouth into a mixing glass with ice. Stir for about 30 seconds. It is very important to stir this cocktail a bit longer than is typical so that it gets a nice dilution of water from the ice. This will give it a more ideal drinking texture. Strain into a chilled glass — either a Nic ‘n’ Nora or traditional martini glass — and garnish with a star anise, or even an ume fruit from the bottle!

*Making chai-infused Dolin Blanc vermouth is actually quite simple. Add 1 tablespoon of chai leaves to every 6 ounces of Dolin Blanc to steep in the fridge for a minimum of 3 days. Then simply strain and it’s ready to serve!

The Sugarplum(e) Fairy

Choya Umeshu has a wide range of ume and yuzu-based products, but one of their most intriguing is their sparkling wine made with ume! And yes, I said sparkling wine, because this particular creation does in fact use a grape-based wine mixed with ume fruit. While still sweet, this sparkling plum wine takes on more of an aperitif flavor profile, making it an ideal base for a Champagne-style cocktail.

Served in a flute glass, a traditional Champagne cocktail places a sugar cube — soaked in Angostura bitters and a bit of brandy — at the bottom of the glass. The flute is then filled with Champagne and the sugar cube at the bottom begins to dissolve, evolving the flavor of the drink as the cube continues to melt.

For this plum wine cocktail, we substitute Champagne for the delicious Choya “Sparkling Plum Wine,” while also adding in an apple brandy alongside spiced cranberry bitters. This will give the drink more of a wintery flavor profile, while still upholding the key components and structure of a traditional Champagne cocktail.

Ingredients

• 1 sugar cube
• 6 drops Bittermens New England Spiced Cranberry Bitters
• .5 ounces Laird’s Applejack
• 5 ounces Choya “Sparkling Plum Wine”
• Built in glass and served in a flute

The construction of this cocktail is quite simple, but the order is very important. Place a sugar cube at the bottom of a Champagne flute glass. Make sure to use a flute or a glass in a similar shape, as this will allow the sugar cube to dissolve in the proper manner. Add 6 drops of the spiced cranberry bitters directly onto the sugar cube until it is a nice reddish-brown color and fully saturated. Then add in .5 ounce of the Laird’s Applejack. (Laird’s is preferred, but any apple brandy will work.) Finally, pour in the 5 ounces of Choya “Sparkling Plum Wine” and enjoy!

At first, this cocktail will be on the tart side, but as you continue to drink it, the sugar cube will continue to dissolve, changing the flavor of the drink over time. It will slowly become sweeter and also open up with notes of cranberry and spice to complement the apricot and dry grape notes of the sparkling wine. Perhaps after two of these, you too will dream of sugarplum fairies dancing through the air!

Yule spiced umerita

Not all umeshu are fruity and sweet; some, like Ginkobai “Hannya Tou,” have a bit of a spicy kick to them. Ginkobai “Hannya Tou” is an umeshu brewed by Ippongi Kubohonten, the largest sake producer in Fukui prefecture. The brewery is renowned for utilizing the area’s unique cold-but-humid climate to create a distinctly crisp and dry sake, derived from the Nanbu Toji Guild’s method of sake brewing. This allows their products to generally have more subtle and soft flavors. Ginkobai “Hannya Tou” combines Ippongi sake with a bold spiciness not typically found in umeshu. The name “hannya” comes from Japanese folklore, telling the story of a woman scorned by her husband and subsequently transforming into a devil. This devil can be found within the umeshu, symbolized by the red pepper that adds a kick to each sip.

This next cocktail is a wintery riff on a spicy margarita. The spicy margarita is one of the more popular cocktails nowadays, typically focusing on a blend of tequila, jalapenos, orange liqueur, lime and agave. For this drink, we strip back the agave-based components and use the umeshu as the center. The umeshu will be complemented by the addition of dry curacao (a dry orange liqueur) and freshly squeezed lemon juice. To add a bit of a Yuletide to the flavor profile, this margarita is rounded out with a bit of pomegranate juice and a brown sugar simple syrup.

Ingredients

• 1.5 ounces Ginkobai “Hannya Tou”
• .75 ounce fresh lemon juice
• .5 ounce dry curacao
• .5 ounce pomegranate juice
• .25 ounce brown sugar simple syrup*
• Shaken, and served on ice with a lemon slice

Add the Ginkobai “Hannya Tou,” fresh lemon juice, dry curacao, pomegranate juice and brown sugar simple syrup into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake for about 20 seconds and strain into a rocks glass with ice. Garnish with a lemon slice and enjoy.

The ice will dilute the umeshu, making the plum notes more subtle but emphasizing the spicy pepper, which will build up the longer you sip on it.

*To make a brown sugar simple syrup, simply heat up 1 cup of water to 1 cup of brown sugar in a pot until the sugar is fully melted. Then remove from heat, allow it to cool, and store in the refrigerator.

Amabuki “Blood Orange Apollon” highball

Mixed with blood orange, lemon, passion fruit, ume, grapefruit and sugar, Amabuki “Blood Orange Apollon” from Amabuki Brewing Company is a rich and sweet umeshu with hefty notes of blood orange and apricot at its center. Amabuki Brewing Company has been brewing sake for three centuries, and most notably uses flower yeast and local rice to create their signature sake. This gives their products a more distinct floral characteristic, as they work with 11 different varieties of flower yeast across their lineup.

Because Amabuki “Blood Orange Apollon” already has so many tasting notes packed into each sip, for this next cocktail, we focus on simplicity in order to highlight the complexity of this wonderful umeshu. The highball is one of the most well-known and diverse cocktails around the globe, and is particularly beloved in Japan. By definition, it is an alcohol combined with a carbonated mixer — think of scotch and soda, rum and coke, gin and tonic, etc. So for this highball, we’re going to use the Amabuki “Blood Orange Apollon” as our base, top it with some soda water, and add just a hint of cinnamon and vanilla to round it out for the holiday season. (You can also just make this Japanese highball with sake and soda water during the warmer months for something super refreshing!)

Ingredients

• 2 ounces Amabuki “Blood Orange Apollon”
• .5 ounce cinnamon vanilla syrup*
• 2 ounces soda water
• Built in a glass with ice and garnished with an orange slice

In a tall glass with ice, add in 2 ounces of Amabuki “Blood Orange Apollon” and .5 ounce of cinnamon vanilla syrup. Top with 2 ounces of soda water and give it a slight, quick stir.

The soda water gives the drink a distinct, refreshing texture, while the cinnamon complements the blood orange notes of the umeshu, warming the overall tone of the drink. The subtle hint of vanilla works alongside the plum to soften the overall taste. This is a tasty and easy drink to make during a big family feast that takes little effort, but packs in a huge amount of flavor.

*To make cinnamon vanilla syrup, add 1 cup water to 1 cup white sugar in a saucepan and heat until the sugar is dissolved. Then add in 5 cinnamon sticks, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon powder. Heat and stir continuously for 10 minutes. Remove from heat, strain, and store in the refrigerator when finished.

Sawanotsuru mulled plum wine

Every cocktail featured thus far has been served cold, but sake can be enjoyed either hot or cold, depending on the product. And since winter is upon us, I think it’s time to make a drink to keep us warm when it’s very cold outside. Sawanotsuru “Plum Sake” is delicious whether it’s served on ice, chilled, at room temperature or hot, making it an ideal base for a hot sake cocktail. In fact, Sawanotsuru claims that the flavor of their sake changes with every 5 degrees Celsius added in temperature, allowing different aromas and flavors to be unlocked as the sake is heated up. Learn more about how to warm sake.

The brewery has been around since 1717 and to this day, the brewery staff cleans every single ume fruit by hand when preparing their umeshu. This particular umeshu is made entirely from a sake base and features a plethora of flavors, such as rich notes of caramel and sweet notes of dried fruit — all flavors we want to fully unlock and highlight when heating this product up to make our cocktail.

When heating sake, one would typically submerge a “tokkuri” (sake carafe) full of sake in a hot water bath. However, for this umeshu cocktail, we slowly heat the sake inside a pot on a stovetop while mixing in added flavors to create an umeshu-based mulled wine!

Mulled wine is a very popular holiday drink during Christmastime for Western cultures. It traditionally combines hot red wine with various mulling spices — cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, etc. — and sometimes a brandy or liqueur. Think of it like a hot version of sangria, playing with winter flavors instead of summer fruits.

Ingredients

• 10 ounces Sawanotsuru “Plum Sake”
• 2 ounces Rothman & Winter Orchard Apricot Liqueur (though any dry apricot liqueur will work)
• 5 whole cinnamon sticks
• 1 teaspoon whole cloves
• .5 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• .5 teaspoon ground allspice
• 5 grams sugar (or 2 sugar cubes)
• Served in a heat-resistant mug with 1 cinnamon stick

The above recipe is designed to make two 6-ounce servings. In a pot on the stove, add 10 ounces of Sawanotsuru “Plum Sake,” 2 ounces apricot liqueur, cinnamon sticks, cloves, nutmeg and allspice. Heat the pot and keep on a low heat for 5 minutes while continuously stirring. Add in your sugar and stir for another 5 minutes. Remove from heat and strain with a mesh strainer into heat-safe cups. Garnish with a cinnamon stick and enjoy!

Now you’re ready to make umeshu cocktails at home

Umeshu is the perfect secret ingredient for holiday cocktails to wow your friends and family this year. Whether you want something to keep you warm when it’s cold outside, something bubbly to ring in the new year, something with a bit of spice, or something a bit more booze forward, umeshu is an ideal base for a wide range of cocktail creations.

Resources

Choya
https://www.choya.co.jp/en/

Ippongi Kubohonten Co., Ltd.
https://www.ippongi.co.jp/en

Amabuki Shuzo Co., Ltd.
https://www.amabuki.co.jp/en/

Sawanotsuru Co., Ltd.
https://www.sawanotsuru.co.jp/site/?wovn=en