Image 1 of 7
Image 2 of 7
Image 3 of 7
Image 4 of 7
Image 5 of 7
Image 6 of 7
Image 7 of 7
Every year around August I start to go a little crazy. Every tree I pass I interrogate for spots of purple or yellow. I wade into the horrific morass of Facebook and NextDoor. I text people I met once at a party who casually mentioned a backyard tree. I'm looking for plums, but also maybe for something else.
If you could see just a bit into the past, plum trees would be everywhere around here. Orchards started to be developed around 1860, and at one point, Oregon's prune industry was larger than today's wine industry. Most of the commercial orchards are gone now, replaced by grapes, hazelnuts, and housing, but plum trees still speckle Portland and its surrounds.
Last year, with a bit of help from a few friends, I picked around 2,800 pounds of plums from several dozen of these unsprayed/organic backyard trees. This mix of damsons, prunes, Santa Rosa and Mirabelle plums were fermented without inoculation or other additions and distilled together. The resultant brandy was selected by the chef and team at Alma PDX and packaged in 750ml bottles at robust 52.1% abv
Years ago, a man whose nationality I can’t quite recall tasted the plum brandy we had at Stone Barn which was in a 375ml bottle and 42% abv. He said, “This is good, but you should make it stronger, and put it in a bigger bottle. You know, for the community. They would appreciate that.” So: if you are still out there, let the community know.