Drunken Plums

Home-made liqueur, smooth and delicious, made from the juiciest of plums sourced from local markets, is guaranteed to get your festive cheer going. Not difficult to make, but needs some expertise in getting it right and to your own personal taste

Text & Photographs: Farzana Contractor

But by far, my one diligent indulgence is making plum rum to be had at Christmas and New Year. The process starts at some point during the monsoon. When there are abundant plums in the market, I can go buy the best that I can find. Dark red, ripe and juicy, as large as possible.

This year I bought two kilos. I had a different plan from the usual annual ritual. I wanted to experiment. I washed and dried the plums very thoroughly with a clean napkin and then left them under the fan for a while to make sure every bit of moisture has gone.

I then divided these plums three ways. With three jars, washed, dried and standing by. Alongside the three bottles of Old Monk I had earlier sent my driver to go fetch. To be honest, I have never been to a liquor shop in all my life. There has never been any need for alcohol, but for this plum rum business, once a year. Until now it's always been one 750 ml bottle of rum that I have used, with one kilo of plums and 750 gms of sugar. That’s what you should do, should you attempt to make plum rum, which I am quite certain you will be tempted when I tell you, it's pure nectar. Sweet and fragrant.

But this year, I was planning on achieving three different tastes. One, a bit dry, the second, normal sweet, and third, quite sweet. I planned on using white sugar for two and organic, raw sugar for the third.

So I got started...

It is important to wash the plums as carefully as possible, not just rid it of any residual chemicals or wax that unscrupulous middle men use to give fruits a shine, but also so as not to bruise them and have the pulp oozing out, or getting water into the fruit.

Drying it thoroughly is the next step, with a soft cloth, one by one and then, laying it on a tray to dry them under the fan.

That done, I carefully, lovingly placed the plums in the glass jar, layering with the sugar as I went along. Then gently I poured the rum over them until each jar contained one bottle. Luckily it was enough to submerge all of the plums. I had put 400 gms and 600 gms of white sugar in two jars and 750 gms of the organic brown sugar in the last one. On second thought, I had decided to cut slits in one set of the plums, which happened to be the ones in the raw sugar. The recipe which I have been following since 25 years does not call for the fruit to be slit, but I just did it this year. For hecks. Or let’s say, better potency. Another thing that I did differently this year is I skipped making the plum rum in the traditional clay barni, you know the ones every Indian kitchen will have either to keep salt in or tamarind, or whatever. But pickles are made and stored in it, for sure.

I have a special barni for my plum rum which I never use for pickles for obvious reasons. It smells strongly of masala and you don't want a plum rum flavoured with hing! Unfortunately this year, I did not land up in Panchgani as I usually do during summer, where I have an umpteen number of these clay jars and where all my pickle-making happens, and so I ended up using the plum barni for the pickles I made in Bombay. Now I was without a clay jar!

Since I didn’t think it was a good idea to to use this barni for the plum rum, with strong masala smells still emanating, I decided to use the three new, attractive glass jars I had sitting on the shelves, with their lovely wooden lids and iron handles.

Well, I was now all ready with my three new plum rum jars, labelled and looking lovely. I took the last few pictures and went and placed them in a cool, darkish spot on the shelf to allow them to sit there and slowly do their job while I visualised me and my friends raising a toast, come Christmas, God willing.

But guess what happened in less than 48 hours, horror of horrors! I happened to be home and in the kitchen when I heard a loudish sound which went ‘chinck.’ I couldn’t figure what the sound was or where it came from, until I smelt the lovely fragrance of – you guessed it, plums! Gingerly, I went around to the side where these glass shelves are, and what do I see? The jar had cracked open, broken and the liquid was all over, with just the plums sitting in the broken bottle, rather apologetically, if I may add.

I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what had just happened. But soon wisdom dawned. The glass jar could not take the pressure of the fermentation. But why only one and not the other two? Okay, so I soon realised this one was the one where I had slit up the fruit – did that hasten the process? Don’t know. This one was also the one with the organic raw sugar!

But I had no time for any of this analysis for now. I quickly called the office, had my peon, my Man Friday, tear across to Crawford Market on his scooter to go buy two, two kilo, jars and rush home with them. When he sent me photos and called to enquire if I wanted this or that and what kind of lid... I was like, “Just buy the ones that screw on tight and come quickly!"

New barnis, soap-washed, hair dryer- dried, soon had the contents of the other two glass jars transferred. Fortunately they had remained intact until my Operation Transfer!

What can I say, old is gold, and please don’t tamper with traditional processes. Don’t even bother with experimentation once you are on to a good thing.

So remember, it’s 1 kg of plums, 1 bottle of Old Monk rum, 750 gms of sugar, IN A CLAY BARNI. Open it just once a couple of months later to give a good stir (with a dry wooden spoon) to unsettle the sugar sitting at the bottom, still melting.

Then as Christmas, nears, take the final step! Strain it into your best crystal decanter. Admire the rich, burgundy colour, pour yourself and your friends some and savour! Merry Christmas.

P.S. Don't throw out the strange- looking, shrivelled-up plums. Pit them and eat them, just like that. Potent enough to give you a kick! Or scoop some vanilla ice-cream on it and eat as dessert!