Reine Claude Plum
Also known as: reine claude, greengage
The greengage, known in French as Reine Claude, is a round-oval dessert plum with smooth pale-green to yellow-gold flesh, prized for its honeyed, confectionery sweetness when fully ripe.
Usage in beverages
As a sweet, aromatic plum, the greengage and related Reine Claude types feed the broad plum-drink tradition: fermented into fruit wines and country wines, made into cider-like plum jerkum, distilled into clear plum brandies and slivovitz-style spirits, infused into liqueurs and ratafias, and used in modern low- and no-alcohol syrups, cordials and shrubs.
In depth
Origins and the spread of the Reine Claude
The greengage belongs to a group of cultivars of the common European plum, a fruit whose ancestry lies in the Middle East before it became firmly rooted in European orchards. In France the fruit acquired the name Reine Claude, honoring Queen Claude, consort of Francis I in the early sixteenth century, and it is also affectionately called la bonne reine. The plum was carried across Europe under a host of local names – renklody in Poland, ringló in Hungary, ringloty in Slovakia and Rainha Cláudia in Portugal – and was grown chiefly for eating fresh or for stewing in syrup. Famed for its rich, almost candied flavor, it ranks among the most celebrated dessert plums, which made its juice and pulp an obvious base for sweet preparations and, eventually, for beverages.[1]
English plum jerkum and country fermentation
In England, surplus plums in the orchard counties were turned into plum jerkum, a fermented drink made in much the manner of cider, or sometimes described as a fruit wine. The tradition was centered on the north Cotswolds and especially Worcestershire, where the plum-growing districts around Pershore and the Vale of Evesham gave farmers and market gardeners abundant fruit to ferment. The drink's color and character varied widely with the type of plum used, from deep purple to claret red and from sticky sweetness to a brisk tartness, so sweet, well-flavored greengage-type plums would have lent themselves to a softer, more honeyed version. Jerkum was notoriously heady and was often cut with cider to temper its strength. Wartime sugar rationing pushed the tradition into decline in the mid-twentieth century, though the name has been revived by American craft producers for spirits and wines made from various stone fruits.[2]
Plum wine and the wider country-wine tradition
Across the cooler winemaking regions of Europe and North America, plums of every kind, the greengage among them, have long been fermented into fruit wine. Because grapes are difficult to grow in such climates, home and small-scale winemakers turned to whatever fruit was at hand, adjusting sugar and acidity by adding sugar or honey and topping up with water to bring the mash into balance. A sweet, aromatic plum like the Reine Claude is well suited to this work, contributing perfume and natural sugar to the ferment. Such wines are usually named for their principal fruit and, in Britain, are traditionally grouped under the term country wine. They are generally meant to be drunk young rather than aged, and can be finished dry or in a sweeter, dessert style.[3]
Distillation: slivovitz and the Central European plum-spirit culture
Across Slavic-speaking Central Europe and the Balkans, plums are the heart of a deep distilling tradition embodied by slivovitz, a fruit brandy whose name comes from the Proto-Slavic word for plum. Produced both commercially and in countless rural home stills from Bosnia and Serbia to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and beyond, the spirit is classed as a kind of rakia, pálinka or pálenka depending on the country. While slivovitz is classically made from damson plums, the broader plum-spirit culture of the region embraces the many cultivars grown locally, including the green and golden Reine Claude types known as ringle, renklody or ringló. The fruit is fermented and then distilled one or more times, often aged in wood to round out its flavor; in Serbia the tradition is so central to culture and ritual that it has been recognized on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage.[4]
French eau-de-vie and the clear plum brandies
In France and the Alpine countries, ripe plums are distilled into eau-de-vie, a clear, colorless fruit brandy made by fermenting the fruit and then double-distilling it, with the aim of capturing the bright, delicate aroma of the parent fruit. These spirits are usually bottled unaged so that they remain water-white, though some producers rest them in wood. Plum is one of the classic fruits of this craft alongside mirabelle, pear, raspberry and cherry, and a fragrant greengage gives a particularly floral, honeyed distillate. Served cold and in small measures as a digestif, plum eau-de-vie reflects the same orchard-to-still logic that produces mirabelle brandy in nearby Lorraine, where golden plums are likewise fermented into wine or distilled into eau-de-vie.[5]
Infused liqueurs and the ratafia tradition
Beyond fermentation and distillation, plums and their kernels feed the family of sweet infused drinks. Ratafia, a broad Mediterranean term for sweet liqueurs and cordials, is made by macerating fruit, kernels, citrus peel and spices in a pre-distilled spirit and then sweetening the result; among its traditional flavorings are the kernels of stone fruits such as peach, apricot and cherry, which lend a bitter-almond note close to the almondy hint found in ripe greengages. A sweet plum such as the Reine Claude, with its honeyed flesh and fragrant stone, sits comfortably within this tradition of steeped, sugared fruit drinks made for sipping after a meal. The same approach underlies plum liqueurs more generally, where whole or crushed fruit is steeped in spirit and sugar rather than fermented.[6]
East Asian steeped plum drinks and their parallels
In Japan and Korea, plums anchor a distinct steeping tradition in umeshu, often loosely called plum wine, though it is properly a liqueur rather than a fermented wine. It is made by steeping unripe ume in a clear spirit such as shochu together with rock sugar, yielding a sweet-and-sour drink of moderate strength that may contain whole fruit in the bottle. Umeshu is enjoyed chilled, over ice, at room temperature or warmed in winter, and forms the base of many simple long drinks and cocktails when lengthened with soda, tonic, green tea or hot water. While ume is a different species from the European greengage, the technique of steeping whole plums in sweetened spirit illustrates a method readily adapted to Reine Claude fruit, and it points toward the contemporary use of sweet plums in low- and no-alcohol cordials, syrups and soda-based refreshers.[7]
References
- [1]EncyclopediaGreengage — Wikipedia↑§1
- [2]EncyclopediaPlum jerkum — Wikipedia↑§2
- [3]EncyclopediaFruit wine — Wikipedia↑§3
- [4]EncyclopediaSlivovitz — Wikipedia↑§4
- [5]EncyclopediaEau de vie — Wikipedia↑§5
- [6]EncyclopediaRatafia — Wikipedia↑§6
- [7]EncyclopediaUmeshu — Wikipedia↑§7