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!