von on the provenance of a gift bottle of umeshu (said bottle already consumed in its entirety at the time of writing.)

"old-school culinary types in japan still make their own plum wines and preserves -- it's the definition of patience, since the wines especially only really hit their stride decades on. i got a large jar of 42-year home-made umeshu when i went to talk to a lady in the outer suburbs of tokyo back in the days before carrying liquids in hand luggage became verboten. it was made from shochu that she'd distilled from sweet potatoes grown on her family's farm in hokkaido and plums from the century-old japanese plum tree in her back yard. it was almost ninety degrees in tokyo the day i visited her and the smell of plums filled the room as soon as the warm jar was opened. it was unctuous, refreshing, bitter, sour, and sweet all at the same time; we ran through it all almost immediately, but i gave minz's parents a bottle of it several years ago that has only recently come back to the surface and they're now drinking it with every sign of enjoyment."