Choya is perhaps one of the most well-loved umeshu brewers in Japan. Not only that, but it is officially recognized as the largest brewer in the entire world. This is a Japanese specialty that is enjoyed best in winter months. Mix warm water with Umeshu in the ratio of 1:1 and you have a handy, delicious drink to sip by the fireplace. The Myojo shop is located near Iidabashi station. This is not a wine shop, but a restaurant. However, don’t think that will limit your drinking experience. You can get 150 different types in this place, with other types of liquors too. You can get the signature shabu-shabu dish in this restaurant to pair up with your Umeshu. Umeshu can be served at different temperatures; chilled or with ice, room temperature, or even hot in the winter. This sake was so enjoyable as it was, I didn’t feel the need to experiment much with temperatures this time. I enjoyed it on several occasions as an aperitif and for dessert, and for our recent celebration of Lunar New Year, we tried it with a homemade Cantonese-inspired lobster dish which was a phenomenal pairing! Enjoying a restaurant-like meal at home is easier to do when you have the perfect drink to pair it with! | Photo by @thesakemom.

Akashi Sake Brewery pride themselves on maintaining a traditional handcrafted approach to creating the finest Japanese sake. Brewing superior sake by hand requires all five senses to perfect with the natural processes of fermentation and flavour development. Even the hushed sounds of natural fermentation at work can be heard in the cool, quiet rooms of their brewery. The specialty of this wine is that it doesn’t use conventional green plum. The fruit is harvested when the palm has the sour taste but also has a hint of sweet. You can smell the plum in this wine vividly, but it also smells like white rice, which enhances the Ume flavor and gives you quite a ride. The raw plums are marinated and fermented in sugar and salt to dissolve the bitter taste. This extracts the rich Ume flavor of the plum out. In a few weeks, we’ll be seeing our friends steep fresh, unripe Japanese plum (or is it apricot?) in liquor in big glass jars that will sit for six months or longer to convert into umeshu; but for those of us who don’t have access to ume, we can enjoy premium umeshu by three wonderful sake breweries through the Plum Sake Set. Plum Sake Set All three plum sake are distinct. Notice the differences in color and viscosity. | Photo by @thesakemom.

Let us find out the best Japanese plum wines you can try…

Now that we have a better understanding of what umeshu is, exactly, let’s take a dive into the tipple’s fascinating history.

The wine is an offering from a well-known Japanese company, the Godo Sushei company ltd. They have been making Umeshu since 1924. The word Fu-ki literally translates to rich and noble, which describes the experience of the wine. You can drink them with ice, or use them at normal temperature. You can even warm them up if you want to drink it in the winter months. It has 13% alcohol content and pairs very well with any kind of food. You can drink this during meals and use them to marinade veggies and meat for grilling and cooking. 4. Fu-ki Plum Wine You may have heard of Eikun , as the infamous brewer has been making impressive advancements into the international brew market, particularly in recent years. In its turn, Eikun isn’t an umeshu -focused brewer, either, but as with Kubota Shuzo, this allows them to experiment, and be more versatile in their selection of brews. This restaurant is pretty close to Ueno station. You might not have heard of this place for Umeshu experience, primarily because they are a buffet restaurant. But they are really heavy on serving healthy food, so if you enjoy vegetarian food, you can get lots of veggie dishes.I'm sure you'll agree that nothing screams Christmas like Plum Sake. What? You've never even heard of Plum Sake?!! Fair enough, nor had I until a few years ago, but now, along with Bing Crosby, Burgundy, and Star Wars Lego, it's on my Christmas essentials list. This sweet plum liqueur has a lovely fruity tang, stopping it from being in any way cloying. It also has some lovely almond notes and just one sip can elevate even the most glorious of mince pies to previously unimagined levels of gastronomic glory! These raw green plums are not edible as they are too tart and bitter (also if you eat too many of them, it is said you’ll likely have a stomachache). We only take the extract of the fruits by fermenting them with lots of sugar or salt. Where to Get Ume Plums If you visit the Hachiko exit, named after the famed, loyal dog Hachiko who waited for a decade for his dead master to return, you will find the Shugar market. This is a store that carries a lot of different varieties of local liquors that can be found in Japan. So, there is a very high chance you can get some shochu here. Above, we talked about the different combinations one can enjoy traditional umeshu in. Now, let’s talk a bit about the different types currently on the market, and how they differ from the traditional beverage. Genshu

The word sake is actually just a general term for booze in Japan, whereas the rice-based drink that we know as sake is called 'nihonshu'. There are over 70 rice varieties used for sake production, and to make the drink the brewery must mill or polish the outer layer of bran down to the starch in the centre. The degree of milling is the main signifier of quality within sake. With a minimum degree of 40% polishing, Ginjo sake is the second highest quality level of the main styles of Sake. I'll list these different styles at the end of the blog. After polishing, they introduce the magical Koji mould (which is similar to the spores used to make blue cheese) and this converts the starch to sugar to allow fermentation. Yeast and water are now added to start this process. But the best part of the Myojo experience for Umeshu lovers is their drink-all-you-can offer for 1500 Yen, and it lasts for a whole 100 minutes. In this time, you can have your fill of Umeshu drinks and decide which one suits your taste best, so you can buy your bottle later on. In brewing its select sakes, Akashi Sake Brewery uses only the finest ingredients, which are all produced locally. For example, the company uses the yamada-nishiki variety of rice "a superior strain" grown in the region just north of Akashi City.

Know rice

When you enter the restaurant, you get a 2-hour timer. Within this time, you can consume all the food you want. But the best part is you can add the Umeshu to your buffet and you will get to drink all the Umeshu you want for 2 hours. This is not very expensive and can be added to the soft drink plan for only 500 Yen. The Yonezawa family commenced sake production in 1886 in Akashi - one of the major fishing towns in the west part of Japan. They combine tradition, uncompromising quality, and particularly since present president Kimio Yonezawa took over, innovation. For many, a straight shot of plum wine is too strong for a dizzyingly hot day, which is how umeshu with water came to be. Umeshu mizu wari is a lighter alcoholic beverage, perfect for savoring and for cooling off! Umeshu Soda. The Takara group was founded near the end of Edo period in 1842. It became one of the biggest brands in Japan in the last half-century. I'm talking of course about Akashi-Tai Shiraume Ginjo Umeshu. That's a pretty impenetrable title, but if we break it down, the tale of this wonderful elixir is revealed. As it's Japanese, we'll go right to left!

The brand provides a different spin on the traditional Umeshu with the addition of a subtle addition of almond and cherry. The wine is sweet but still has some of the tangy flavors of the Ume. This is delicious and fresh. While you are at it, their beverage selection is to die for. And you will find several sake and Umeshu wines, many kinds of fruit wines, and even several varieties of the traditional shochu drink. The beverages are also made with a signature touch with a hint of special spices like sesame, chestnut, and other ingredients. Break out from your boring old Umeshu tour, and taste the heritage of Japan in this restaurant with your friends and family. From mid-May to early June, it’s ume (Japanese plum) season here in California. During this short period of time when fresh ume is available, the Japanese make plum wine, or what we call Umeshu (梅酒) with still unripe and green plums. Another big-name Japanese alcohol brewer, Kubota Shuzo is also sold internationally, mostly in specialty liquor stores and fine bars. Kubota Shuzo is actually a sake producer, at its origin, and one of the largest in the country. However, it’s not uncommon for sake brewers to also dabble in the occasional glass of plum wine , and Kubota Shuzo has managed to do this wonderfully.More than a sake, this drink is an Umeshu, meaning a plum liqueur made by preserving Japanese Ume plums in sake. Traditionally Umeshu is made using distilled spirit (Shochu) but Akashi-Tai use sake for a more subtle character.