Blood Plum
Blood plum is a trade and garden name for plums whose flesh, not just skin, is deep red to crimson. Most are cultivars of the Japanese (Chinese) plum and its hybrids. In drinks the fruit is valued for the vivid color it gives to juices, syrups, ferments and infusions, and for its balance of sweetness and sharp acidity.
How blood plum is prepared
Blood plums are pressed for fresh juice and nectars, and simmered into cordials, syrups and shrubs for sodas and alcohol-free mixed drinks. They are fermented into country-style plum wine and added to kombucha, kefir-style ferments and fruit beers. They are also steeped in spirits or sugar to make liqueurs and infused syrups. Their strong natural color makes them popular for tinting and flavoring spritzes and mocktails.
Cooking ingredients in liquid over time.
Blood plum is stewed in its own liquid. Davidson plum is separately poached.[6]
Service signal Works as a other component.
In depth
Chinese origins of the red-fleshed plum
The plums sold today as blood plums trace back mainly to Prunus salicina. This species is known only in cultivation and arose in China, where plums were among the earliest fruits people domesticated. Over centuries it was grown across East Asia, eventually becoming known in the West as the 'Japanese plum'. American breeders later crossed it with the Chinese Simon plum and the Eurasian cherry plum, producing large, juicy, long-keeping fruit. Some of these cultivars had red or purplish flesh. Because these plums are usually clingstone and poorly suited to drying, they found their place as fresh fruit and in liquid preparations rather than as prunes.[1]
East Asian steeped and sweet-sour plum drinks
East Asia offers the oldest framework for turning plum-type fruit into drinks without fermenting the fruit itself. In Japan, home and commercial makers steep fruit with sugar in a clear spirit to produce a sweet-tart liqueur, which is then served on ice, with soda, with tea or with hot water. Korea has a comparable plum liquor, and China has a sour plum drink made from smoked fruit and rock sugar. These classic preparations rely on ume, which is botanically closer to the apricot than to the true plum. Still, the steeping method and the sweet-sour drinking style transfer naturally to red-fleshed Japanese plums. Home makers and bartenders increasingly use blood plums this way to produce ruby-colored infusions and syrups.[2]
The European plum tradition and its brandies
In Europe, plum drinks grew from a different species, the European plum, Prunus domestica. Damsons were fermented and distilled into the plum brandies of Central Europe and the Balkans, such as Serbian šljivovica, Czech slivovice and Romanian țuică. In Serbia, plum brandy is woven into rites of passage and saint's-day celebrations. Red-fleshed Japanese plums were not part of these historic spirits, which are often legally or traditionally tied to damsons and related fruit. However, the European habit of fermenting surplus plum harvests into strong drink shaped how growers elsewhere later approached the newer red-fleshed varieties.[3]
Country wines and plum ferments
In Britain, North America and other cool or temperate regions, plums became a staple of 'country' or fruit winemaking. Here the fruit is crushed or stewed, diluted, adjusted with sugar, acid and yeast nutrients, and fermented. England also produced a cider-like plum drink known as jerkum. As red-fleshed Japanese plums spread through gardens and orchards in the twentieth century, especially in warm-temperate places such as Australia, home winemakers adopted them for their deep color and lively acidity. The resulting wines are typically light, fruity and best drunk young, in keeping with fruit wines in general.[4]
Infusing spirits with fruit
Steeping fruit in spirit has a long pedigree beyond Japan. In China, the clear grain liquor baijiu is commonly infused with fruit, herbs and spices, a practice rooted partly in traditional medicine and partly in flavor. Infusions of this kind, along with European fruit liqueurs, have encouraged the use of red-fleshed plums as a steeping fruit. The plum's color and tartness carry well into a spirit base, which can then be heavily diluted with soda or tea to make a lower-alcohol drink.[5]
Contemporary no- and low-alcohol uses
Today blood plums appear most often in drinks that contain little or no alcohol. Their high water content and juicy flesh suit fresh juices and nectars. Cooking the fruit with sugar yields cordials and syrups that keep its crimson color and sweet-tart taste. Vinegar-based shrubs, house sodas, spritzes and alcohol-free cocktails use these syrups as a base. Fermenters add the fruit to kombucha, water kefir and sour-style beers, where the tart skin adds structure. Because the fruit's kernels contain cyanogenic compounds, makers generally remove the stones before long infusions or ferments.[1]
References
- [1]EncyclopediaPlum — Wikipedia↑§1↑§6
- [2]EncyclopediaUmeshu — Wikipedia↑§2
- [3]EncyclopediaSlivovitz — Wikipedia↑§3
- [4]EncyclopediaFruit wine — Wikipedia↑§4
- [5]EncyclopediaBaijiu — Wikipedia↑§5
- [6]Product informationPROGRESS1 Poached Plum & Finger Lime — official product details, captured 2026-09-11↑prepared