On recent trip to the Oxfordshire countryside with my sister we chanced upon a tree laden with small, round, bright red plums ripe for picking. Not one to shun a free fruit bounty we hoisted ourselves into its sturdy bows and helped ourselves to a hatful of plums (literally a hat full. A straw-coloured trilby, to be precise).
Most of them were swiftly scrubbed, stoned and frozen to await their fate – plum wine perhaps or maybe more plum jerkum trials – but as my sister is partial to a drop of fruity liqueur some of them were plunged straight into a bottle of vodka to introduce their wild ways to the spirit world. And rather than a straight plum liqueur we fancied developing some more interesting flavours to enhance their fruitiness. So we spun the spice wheel of fortune and landed upon cardamom. And now we’re sharing the recipe with you…
Our easy wild plum and cardamom liqueur recipe
Weigh out around 500g of plums. The wilder the better. (But we won’t tell if you get some President plums from the supermarket and pretend you found them in a far flung hedge). Give them a scrub and roughly chop in half. You don’t need to remove the stones – these will impart mellow, almond flavours to the final drink.
Grab yourself around 20 green cardamom pods and crack them open with a lusty blow of something solid. Scrape out the seeds and discard the pods. Put the plums and cardamom seeds into a jar with a tight fitting lid and cover with a 70cl bottle of vodka. To this add around 220g white sugar. Seal the lid and give the jar a good shake. Repeat shakes over the course of a week should dissolve the sugar. Set the jar aside, preferably somewhere cool and dark, for three months, giving it a few more shakes from time to time. Strain, bottle, drink. And it may just send you wild.
This sounds amazing – I’m going to have to add the recipe to my repertoire! Will you post a follow-up when it’s ready for drinking?
We have high hopes for this one and it’s smelling very tempting already.
Post us a reminder in December and we’ll provide you with some proper tasting notes.
I made this is September 2020 and bottled it in December. It’s absolutely delicious and a worthy drink particularly in the dreaded lockdown. I have made BlackBerry Brandy, Sloe Gin and Raspberry Whisky, all great, but this is my favourite!
A marvellous site, thanks to you both for all your info.
Thanks for letting us know!
Really pleased it’s helping you get through lockdown
I’d use less sugar because I’m, though under control, Type 2 diabetic. I’ve also been looking at number of American recipes which to me contain, as most American recipes for just about anything do, a whole lot of uunnessessary ‘faff’. [All that ‘a cup of this and a cup of that’ who the hell, knows what a cup of vodka is anyway??] I’ve just got a load of Special Offer Plums from our local supermarket [from South Africa and Chile no less] and I’ll give it a go. I’ve read somewhere that giving the ‘stones’ a bash with a hammer helps those ‘almond’ notes. Any comment ?
I’m with you on cups!
Mostly we take measurements as a very loose guide…
I have no idea what bashing stones might do – I guess a lot depends on what flavours lurk behind that hard surface.
Hi guys, am tryimg this one now as I’ve been given a glut of plums. I have enough for two batches so when halving the plums I’ve put the stone half in one and the unstoned in the other. Curious if I can pick out the almond notes. I’ll keep you posted.
A worthy experiment. Look forward to reading about the results…