This summer our plum tree over delivered in fruit. We had almost 200 lbs of juicy purple plums and the kids could only eat SO many in their lunches. We dried some, but plums don’t actually dehydrate that well. And we sliced and froze a lot to make into this delicious German plum cake.
About 80lbs went to the U-brew to be made into plum wine.. and the remaining, well they were used for plum liqueur .
The plums were halved, pitted and stuffed into mason jars.
I tossed 2TBS of sugar over the sliced plums and then filled the jars with Vodka.
After 8 weeks of steeping in our basement, with regular “turning and shaking” the liqueur was ready to be bottled.
Since it was our first time we were a little nervous about it, but even at first taste we knew it had worked. The plum liqueur was sweet, and clear and perfect on it’s own, mixed into a cocktail or even poured over ice-cream.
Because the plums held their constancy, there was very little straining needed to make the plum liqueur.
We also made a peach liqueur, using the same process, but from the peach skins and excess leftover from making jam. This was less full of flavour, and in future we will just leave the peaches for canning. Pear liqueur was also made, again using the same process as the plums, adding quartered pears to mason jars, with sugar and covering with vodka. The flavour is again, not as full as with the plum.
Next year we plan to try blackberries! We now know we need a full flavoured fruit to meld with the spirits to create the valour we love.
The best part was that we were left with bowls of booze soaked plums. They were diced up, and stored in airtight bags in the freezer to be used in a holiday fruitcake!
I feel good when we are able to use ALL the fruit we pick, and have very little go to waste! With this plum liqueur I feel that we did exactly that. All 200lbs of fruit were used, process, soaked or stored to be consumed! Now, fingers crossed the tree delivers again next year!
8 Comments
it’s so great what nature provides for us esp the wine
Wow! That sounds interesting.I like that you can mix it into different cocktails if you want and it sounds easy.
Wow never knew it was so easy?!! I will have to try my dad has tons of plums each fall 🙂
[…] things with the fruits in her orchard. Find out how she turned her bounty of summer plums into a DELICIOUS Plum liquer that I plan to drink mucho of the next time I […]
o my !! i will have to try this .. what a great blog i didnt know u could do that i thought u could only make moonshine and beer ! i learned something new thanks
Huh! How cool is that! 🙂
What is the actual recipe?
Also, was the jar sealed in any way, vacuum sealed or just as is, in a canning jar?
Thank you.
It wasnt sealed, just washed and prepped in high heat, then closed tightly. The actual recipe was to cover ALL the fruit with vodka! Lots of it!