Yuzu is one of Japan’s great tastes. Yuzu is lemony but more delicate and mild, even the peel can be eaten! Try that with a lemon. Yuzu is used to flavor many things from sashimi and grilled fish to mochi and wagashi. Yuzushu, yuzu liqueur is fairly uncommon in Japan so we tried making our own at home this year.

We continue with our winter season Japanese fruit liqueur series and tell you about making yuzushu, or yuzu liqueur. The yuzu fruit is not normally eaten like other Japanese citrus, the mikan tangerine for example. Instead the juice and peel is used for an exquisite and subtle flavoring.

Yuzushu is very easy to make and preparation just takes 30 minutes or so. It should be aged about 1 year before drinking.

Yuzu

Yuzu Detail

Yuzu is in season throughout the winter in Japan, but traditionally it would be harvested at the beginning of winter, in late November and December. We were a bit late but were still able to find some fresh yuzu but ended up paying about double what we’d have paid earlier in the winter.

While yuzushu can be found in liquor stores and on restaurant menus, I have only had yuzushu that I liked a few times. The common yuzushu tastes like it was just ethanol mixed with yuzu juice, the kind of thing that gives you a big headache in a big hurry! That is not what I want to drink!

Properly, Japanese fruit liqueur is made by steeping fresh fruit in 35% alcohol and usually plenty of sugar. Usually the fruit is steeped for 6 months to one year and then the liqueur can be aged. Here we use rice shochu because it doesn’t have its own distinct flavor like mugi (wheat) or imo (yam). It tastes somewhat like vodka. Umeshu is surely Japan’s most popular fruit liqueur.

Yuzu Peeled

Yuzu Flesh and Peel – detail

After peeling the yuzu the pith is pulled away from the fruit and scraped away from the peel.

Scraping Pith from Yuzu Skin

Scraping Pith from Yuzu Skin

Yuzu Peel, Flesh and Sugar

Notice sugar at the bottom of the glass container.

Yuzu Peel, Flesh and Sugar: Pouring on Shochu

Yuzu Steeping in Shochu: Wait One Year

Yuzushu (Yuzu Japanese Citrus Liqueur) Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 kg yuzu (about 5 fruit)
• 1.8ℓ  35% shochu
  
• 200-300 grams of sugar (add more or less to suit your taste)

We of course didn’t follow any recipe. We used 7 yuzu, 1.8 liters of 35% rice (kome) shochu and a not much sugar. My theory is that the less dissolved sugar there is in the shochu, the more flavor will come out of the fruit. Miwa as usual is sure I am ruining it. I may add sugar after we remove the fruit. I will taste it first and add as needed. The sugar that we used is natural, raw sugar from Hokkaido, made from sugar beets.

Preparation

• Wash the yuzu well.
• Peel and separate fruit and peel.
• Pull white stringy pith from fruit and with knife or spoon lightly scrape pith from inner side of peel.

Steep and Age

• Add yuzu peel and flesh and sugar and 35% shochu to non-reactive container, preferably glass.
• Remove Peel: Remove yuzu peel after a week to 10 days (taste). Squeeze lightly with cheese cloth and return liqueur to steeping container.
• Remove Fruit: Remove fruit after one month. Squeeze fruit well in cheese cloth to retain juice and absorbed shochu.
• Age: Age one year in cool, dark place.

Update – Removing the Peel (7 Days Later)
After 7 days we removed the peel. The recipes that we have seen said to remove the peel after 7 to 10 days. I think that we used a bit more yuzu than usual, 7 rather than 5. After 7 days, we tasted the yuzushu and thought that it was rather bitter. It does have to age for one year and as this is the first time we have made it, we don’t know how it will mellow over the aging period.

＊Recommendation: Sample the yuzushu every day and remove the peel when it reaches the right flavor for you. That point may be less than 7 days for you. I am guessing that the citrus peel ‘bite’ will mellow with aging, but that is just a guess.

I am also guessing that ‘bite’ will go very well with hot water — many Japanese like to drinking rather stinky yam shochu with hot water, called ‘oyu-wari’ in Japanese.

Removing Yuzu Peel

Removing Yuzu Peel

Of course you want to return this liquid to the container, I didn’t squeeze our too hard. We are going to make marmalade and candied peel with the leftover yuzu peel.

A Really Interesting Yuzu Confection
Yubeshi-mochi is an incredible mochi dish! The top of the fruit is cut off and the flesh inside is scraped out and steamed with mochi, the hot yuzu flavored mochi is poured into the yuzu shell, it is capped and then steamed. How it is eaten is very interesting, the yuzu is sliced vertically, peel and all and eaten. It is one of Japan’s best confections, rather rare though.

How Yubeshi-mochi is Made

Karin, a variety of quince, is fairly common to see in the fruit section of grocery stores in the winter in Japan. I knew that people steeped it in shochu alcohol to make karinshu, like umeshu (plum liqueur) but had never made it or even tasted it. We made some today and I am now a fan of the karin quince!

In the winter season in Japan it is quite popular to make fruit liqueur with seasonal fruit such as yuzu, kumquats (kinkan), karin and a few others, even strawberries.

This year I wanted to make karinshu, but was waiting until we could find some good 35% shochu to make it with, not the run of the mill ‘white liquor’ sold in discount liquor shops and some grocery stores. When I finally found some but we couldn’t find any karin. We checked around on the internet, called some farmers and learned that the season ends in early winter so I thought that we missed our chance this year.

Karin Fruit

Big and waxy, oily to the touch.

Karin Fruit

Note beagle for scale.

Today when Miwa got back from grocery shopping, in a very excited voice she told me that she had a surprise for me and to close my eyes. She put a mango smelling fruit under my nose and asked me what I thought it was. I was stumped. When I opened my eyes I saw a big, waxy karin.

I had never seen or touched a karin. The fruit is quite hard and dry, so I was surprised that it would smell so fruity. It was REALLY fruity. Also the skin was almost oily. A first I thought that it was some kind of industrial wax covering, but I don’t think it was. It washed off rather easily.

Karin Fruit: Sliced and Ready to Steep in Shochu

Sliced Karin Fruit – detail

Notice the color of the flesh. The one on the left is rather brown, I think that means old. The one on the right looks more like photos I usually see of karin.

Karin Steeping in Shochu

We quickly washed, dried and sliced up the karin and added them to a large glass umeshu container with sugar and high quality 35% shochu. As we worked, I was quite astonished at how this woody fruit could smell so good. I kept thinking that it reminded of a mango, but without that over the top, tropical power. Upland, temperate climate mango is how I think of the Japanese karin.

Karin Steeping in Shochu – detail

Karin Steeping in Shochu: Wait One Year

I am REALLY looking forward to sipping this one. I will let you know how it tastes — in a year!

Karinshu (Japanese Quince Liqueur) Recipe

• karin (Japanese quince): 1kg
• 35% shochu ‘white liquor’: 1.8 liter
• sugar: 300g to 1kg

Rice shochu (komejochu) is recommended, mugi (wheat) or imo (sweet potato) have too strong a taste. Vodka is an acceptable substitute. Normal shochu for drinking is 25% alcohol, 35% is required for making Japanese style liqueur because after steeping the alcohol content must be around 15% to prevent spoilage.

• Wash karin with hot water and wipe well on dry towel.
• Cut fruit into slices 1cm in thickness. Do not discard seeds, they are nutritious.
• Layer karin slices and sugar in non-reactive container (preferably glass)
• Pour in shochu into container and seal.
• After 6 months, remove karin fruit.
• Allow to age for another 6 months.

Of course we didn’t follow any recipe. We added little sugar, maybe 300 or 400 g,  but will probably add more when we remove the fruit.

Karin in English
We spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out the proper English name for karin but are still not quite sure which variety of quince it properly is. I will call the botanical garden next week and try to get the definitive answer.

Hannari Brand Umeshu: The tastes of Kyoto are subtle and refined, this umeshu was designed to be hannari, or delicate. In addition to classic umeshu, there are four imaginatively ‘Kyoto’ flavored versions; cinnamon, yuzu, green tea and shiso.

As foodies well know, fine ingredients make for fine tastes. Kitagawa Honke produces its own rice shochu for its umeshu. The shochu, straight out of the still is 35.5% alcohol, shochu sold retail is 25%. As the ume extract and sugar will significantly lower the alcohol content of the finished umeshu, 35% is considered the minimum. The finished product will be about 15%. Lower alcohol content can allow fermentation and spoil the liqueur.

Kitagawa Honke Hannari Brand Umeshu

Hannari Umeshu (はんなり梅酒): Hannari umeshu is made with rice shochu that has been aged 2 years, then after steeping nearly ripe ume fruit for 9 months, the umeshu is aged for 1 year. This process produces umeshu that is complex in flavor and mellow.

Yatsuhashi Umeshu (八ッ橋梅酒): Yatsuhashi is a popular Kyoto omiyage (souvenir). It comes in a myriad of forms and flavorings, but it always includes sweetened mochi that has been flavored with cinnamon, which was a very unusual spice in Japan. This umeshu is flavored with cinnamon! We have never heard of this before. Wow, this is not only clever and imaginative, it tastes very good too!

Nigori Yuzu Umeshu (にごり柚子梅酒): Yuzu, the lemony Japanese citron we have talked a lot about on KyotoFoodie quite a bit last winter. Here the yuzu juice is nigori, or cloudy, unfiltered. (Unfiltered sake is called nigorizake.) Yuzu umeshu is fairly common and this is best rendition I have had of it. Very, very nice!

Uji Gyokuro Umeshu (宇治玉露梅酒): Now here is a masterpiece! Gyokuro is very high quality green tea which Uji, in the south of Kyoto produces. Gyokuro flavors the umeshu which is blended with umeshu made from sake, not shochu. The umeshu is a very gentle background taste with an unbelievably astringent gyokuro green tea flavor raging above it. I have had green tea umeshu before, it was sweet and juice-like. I was stunned when I first tried this umeshu. It is not unlike maccha! As an aperitif or digestif, this is sure to blow guests away! This is a DO NOT miss if you are in Kyoto.

Ohara Shiso Umeshu (大原紫蘇梅酒): In the North Mountains above Kyoto, the village of Ohara is famous for its production of shiso that is usually used in tsukemono, Japanese pickles. Ripe shiso, which is a reddish purple adds a delicious taste and vibrant color to this umeshu. At a recent party at my house, the gals finished a bottle of this umeshu in a flash. I guess this is one of those flavors that is especially popular with ladies.

‘Kiki’ in the Lab

Kiki – Shochu Tasting with Tashima Toji (Brewmaster)

Tashima Toji gave me two kinds of shochu to taste. One is fresh out of the still, this year’s production and the other is aged 3 years. The fresh stuff was pretty rough around the edges, but the aged shochu, though high-powered was drinkable straight at room temperature. The difference that aging makes was obvious to me.

Reference: Green Ume

These were in the lab, they are the typical unripe, green ume. These are from Joyo, a suburb south of Kyoto. I think that they are planning top secret 梅酒R&D with them. Green ume typically produce umeshu that it sweet, but not especially complex.

Over at Okinaya

Kitagawa Honke operates this small store on the main street, next to the river where their sake and good rice can be purchased. We introduced this store in this article about learning to make sake. (map and photos at the bottom of the post)

Ume and Umeshu Lineup

On the left is a bag of ume that was used to make umeshu. These make great snacks! In the middle, the jar contains a generous amount of ume and umeshu. The small jars on the right are about a single serving of umeshu and contain no fruit. These are all Hannari brand.

Ume in Umeshu

Ume in jar detail.

Hannari Umeshu

This is the classic, unflavored umeshu, available in 1.8 liter and 720ml bottles with no fruit.

Hannari Umeshu ‘Kyoto’ Flavors

From left to right; yatsuhashi (cinnamon), yuzu, gyokuro (green tea) and shiso.

The Series
Learning to Make Umeshu: Part 1
Learning to Make Umeshu: Part 2

Umeshu: Japanese plums, called ume (梅) are mainly used to flavor alcohol and vinegar and to make the incredible umeboshi, pickled plum. In early summer, it is popular to make ume flavored alcohol, called umeshu (梅酒) at home, but we were fortunate enough to get to learn from the pros this year.

Our friends and KyotoFoodie fans at Kitagawa Honke Sake Brewery showed Peko how they make their one-of-a-kind, Hannari (はんなり) brand ‘Kyoto style’ umeshu.

Umeshu (梅酒)
To make umeshu, the ume fruit are steeped in shochu (焼酎) for 6-9 months. The shochu is quite strong, 35% alcohol, but the finished umeshu is usually less than 15%. The shochu draws out the ume extract, ume extract combined with the sugar halves the alcohol content. If steeped longer than 6-9 months, the shochu will start to leach out the bitterness of the ume pits. After removing the fruit, umeshu can then be consumed or aged.

Umeshu is not fermented, therefore it is NOT ‘plum wine’. It is a liqueur.

The steeped ume fruit can be eaten and are sweet and tasty, yet quite intoxicating. It is common at New Year’s and other family gathering occasions in Japan to see some children red-faced and buzzing thanks to Grandpa fishing a few ume out of the jar for them to eat.

Now there are many kinds of umeshu available, many combining novel ingredients but it is always sweet and plum fruity. In the winter umeshu is excellent served with hot water and in the summer on ice or with soda water.

Umeshu is often made of the green ume fruit, however Kitagawa Honke uses fruit that are slightly more ripe, being more yellow in color. This creates a mellower and more full-bodied, complex flavor. (More about Hannari brand umeshu in part 2, and the recipe in an upcoming homecooking article.)

Umeshu Production Process
The process for making umeshu is quite simple.

1. De-stem the ume fruit.
2. Check quality, remove any overly ripe or rotten fruit.
3. Wash
4. Place in container with sugar and alcohol (35% by volume).
5. Seal container and place in a cool, dark place for aging.

Ume Season
The ume is in the plum family, but it is actually more closely related to apricot than what Westerns would usually think of as a plum. In the Kyoto region ume blossom in later winter, usually February. If you are lucky, you can see ume blossoms in the snow! The fruit is mature by early summer and often used when green and unripe.

Wakayama Prefecture, to the south-east of Kyoto produces the best ume in Japan. Vitually any high quality ume product in Japan uses ume from Wakayama, or Kishu (紀州) as it was once called. Kitagawa Honke selects ume from Kinan (紀南), which is the southern most part of Wakayama. The warm, mild climate makes for excellent ume.

Sake is made during the cold months so the brewery is not so busy in the summer, however in mid-June, when the ume are in season there is a 10 day flurry of activity when umeshu is made. Early every morning several tons of ume arrive and the fruit are sorted and de-stemmed. In addition to the kurabito (brewery workers) crew, the warehouse crew and the employees that work in the office walk down the street to the brewery and help out. All of this work in finished in the morning. After lunch, the kurabito crew wash the ume and place them in tanks with shochu and sugar.

Shochu
In Japan there are numerous kinds of shochu. The most common shochu are distilled from sweet potato, barley or rice. Many other ingredients are used now; soba, black sugar (kokuto 黒糖), sesame — even milk!

Kitagawa Honke makes the shochu that is used in their umeshu, and as they are a sake brewery, they make it from rice. Rice shochu is fairly close to vodka in taste.

As I approached the brewery this morning, the fragrance of ume fruit was heavy in the neighborhood!

Making Umeshu at Kitagawa Honke Sake Brewery

Crates of Nicely Ripened Ume

All Hands on Deck

70 Crates of Ume

Seventy crates of ume today to sort and de-stem.

De-stemming and Sorting Ume

Everyone in the company joins in, even the ‘suits’!

De-stemming and Sorting Ume

De-stemming Ume – Before and After

The stems are plucked out with a simple needle-like metal instrument.

De-stemming and Sorting Ume

The ume on the left are ‘B’ quality, they have some bruises and blemishes, the ume on the right are ‘A’ quality. When the umeshu is finished, the ‘A’ quality ume will be added to bottles or bagged and sold separately for eating. ‘B’ quality ume taste just fine. (see part 2)

Weighing Ume

The de-stemmed and sorted ume are carefully weighed in preparation to adding to the tanks.

Hues of Ume

From green to yellow, orange and even red, this variety of color produces a more complex flavored umeshu than the usual unripened green fruit. More precision and labor is required, but the quality of the end result is obvious.

Final Check

Two tanks, differing in size will be filled today. Brewmaster Tashima (left) oversees the final check of the recipe and crate count for each tank. The shochu and sugar has already been added.

Washing Ume

The ume absorb water which will affect the taste of the umeshu, so they have to be washed quickly, and of course, thoroughly. Kitagawa Honke uses rather ripe ume fruit, so they are easily bruised by the mechanical brushes in the washing machine. The ume are washed for just 35 seconds.

Washing Ume

As the ume spin on the cylindrical brushes, one of the crew hoses them with Fushimi water.

Washing Ume

After washing, the ume are returned to clean crates then allowed to drain but not quite dry for about 20 minutes. Excess water can cause the umeshu to spoil later.

Steeping Ume

The ume are lifted with the forklift then unceremoniously dumped into the tank.

Steeping Ume

Steeping Ume

I love this shot! And, I got splashed taking it!

Steeping Ume

The ume are all submerged in shochu and then the tank is covered. See you in the springtime, ume.

The Series
Learning to Make Umeshu: Part 1
Learning to Make Umeshu: Part 2