Choya - Umeshu

Ume is not Plum - The story of your idiot American distributors

Some articles just write themselves. And today folks, this is one of those articles. Today I’m writing about Choya’s Umeshu a tongue tingling tantalizer that deserves a spot in your refrigerator (best served chilled!!)

For a moment, let’s step back in time. Your correspondent, the Liquid Globalist had perhaps recently learned his ABC’s, 123’s or whatever developmentally kids learn at a certain age. It’s about 1989, and your correspondent is about 4 years old. The fledgling Liquid Globalist’s parents take him to an American Hibachi restaurant far afield of Japan and… at the end of the meal order a glass of plum wine and offer their small child a tiny, child sized sip. And to my short 4 years of lived experience, this is perhaps the most deliciously powerful fruity flavor I’d ever experienced, and I was instantly in love. This is not a tale of alcohol abuse (there were no further sips) or addiction, but perhaps this is how addiction works? Unintentionally, my parents had created a memory lasting, now numerous decades, and a longing for beverages of exquisite taste. Who knows if this was even naturally flavored plum wine? This was after all the age of letting your children sip copiously from never ending 2 liter bottles of orange soda? I digress, so let’s swing back to the topic at hand, Umeshu.

Flash forward to perhaps 2018 (ok, maybe even as early as 2016). Your correspondent, the Liquid Globalist is perusing the aisles of his local liquor store, and happens to catch sight of a crate of Choya Umeshu. Standing in an attractive green glass, wide mouth bottle, there appear to be these green, floaty fruits, that on closer inspection resemble… plums!! As a rushing flood of memories comes back, I pick up the bottle and on closer inspection am able to confirm they are indeed plums!! I am so adding this bottle to my cart!!!

I proceed to take the bottle home, chill it and enjoy the flavorful delights of this excellent elixir (more tasting notes later). Unfortunately, unlike a finely curated cabinet of exquisite flavors, life isn’t one universally positive experience. There are bad experiences, and more importantly bad people in the world. People who tell lies, even if they’re little white lies. Those people are your idiot American distributors.

Like the story of Adam and Eve, the problem began with my search for knowledge. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe my rather anxious spouse had seen the shriveled, greenish fruit at the bottom of the bottle, and begged me to spare my life by not consuming the weird looking fruit. For the causal reader of this column, this may seem like a bizarre set of concerns, but in fact my spouse - on our honeymoon - begged me not to eat figs from the fig tree in our hotel’s own courtyard for fear that they could be a special variety of “poison figs.” Nevertheless, like a valiant crusader, I do not let fear of death sway me from serving you, my dear readers!! Besides, those plums looked pretty tasty.

So I logged onto the world wide interwebz in search of knowledge, confirming I could eat these tasty booze soaked plums. And then the problem was I landed on the Choya website:

It’s there in clean plain writing. There’s even a hyperlink to an entire section entitled “Ume is not plum”. And when you scroll further you end up seeing:

An entire diagram of the prune family, with a clear as day slash thru the equal sign, making it unequivocally clear that Ume IS NOT plum, anymore than Almonds are not Peaches. What were your dumb American distributors thinking!! At this point your correspondent, who is no stranger to heated workplace politics in the corporate setting, could only imagine the hushed voices of disappointment and seething anger over some Polycom conference line, when the folks at Japanese headquarters learned the American distributors had decided to ship with the “Plum Wine” label. The public must know the truth!!

Perhaps one of the great redemptions of life is that while objective truth exists, in practice Artifice is the virtue humanity consistently chooses to elevate. Because I seek to uphold the highest of journalistic standards my dear reader, I can assure you this story is 100% true, and I have the links in the Wayback Machine to bear evidence that this great battle of wills took place. But how did the conflict end??? Sometimes the villain wins, and inevitably history is rewritten and the truth is obscured from the people. Today’s Choya Japan website brings sad tidings that the plum partisans in marketing have had their victory. The consumer wants their plums!!!

So with this sad outcome in our plum saga finally revealed, how my dear readers does it taste??? At 14.6% ABV, you’d be forgiven in thinking this is but a mild tipple akin to wine. Choya Umeshu is an intense, fruit forward sip, primarily punctuated by the Ume fruit’s natural citric and malic acids. That the flavor is so pronounced, and yet natural, and not enhanced thru the act of distillation is a testament to the beauty of the Ume fruit, and it’s rightful place within humanity’s pantheon of culinary traditions. What I absolutely love about Choya’s Umeshu is it tastes just like I remember plum wine tasting back in that Hibachi restaurant, in 1989. But this isn’t nostalgic kitsch, Choya is Japan’s #1 selling Umeshu in today’s modern market. Like the recently reviewed Branca Menta, this beverage is perfect for the quiet of a late evening, with friends or alone in those contemplative moments. Oh, and the fruits a the bottom of the bottle are definitely delicious and totally non-toxic. Happy sipping!!!

Producer and distributor details:

IMPORTED & DISTRIBUTED BY CHOYA UMESHU USA, INC.

Burlingame, CA 94010

PRODUCED & BOTTLED BY CHOYA UMESHU CO.,LTD.

HABINKINO, OSAKA 583-0841 JAPAN

WWW.CHOYA.COM