Maesil-ju (Green Plum Liquor)

Maesil comes to market for a short time, late spring into early summer, hard and green, before the real heat settles in. Cook the month you're standing in. If the plums are yellow, soft, or bruised, don't make maesil-ju from them. Make something else and wait for next year.

This liquor asks very little tonight and a great deal later. Wash the fruit, dry it completely, remove every stem, and layer it with sugar and strong soju in a clean jar. The measure matters: 1 kilogram plums, 500 grams sugar, 1.8 liters soju made for steeping. Too much sugar turns it heavy; too little leaves the fruit sharp and thin. Let the maesil still taste like maesil.

My teacher made us mark the jar with the day it was filled and the day the fruit must come out. Not roughly. Day 100. Green plum pits can give bitterness if they sit too long, and this is not a drink improved by forgetfulness. Write it down. Memory is a borrowed bowl. After the fruit is pulled, the liquor rests until it rounds out, the kind you pour in small glasses after a meal, not because it is loud, but because it is clean and steady.