Okay, so I was gone for about a week, and it was time to check the neighbors’ plum tree for ripeness. Yes! They’d invited us to pick the fruit from the branches that hang over into our yard because they have more than they can use. Really!? Okay!
I picked 2/3 of a brown paper grocery bag full of yummy ripe plums in just a few minutes. Looked all over for the recipe B copied for me when I visited her in Indiana, but couldn’t find it. Called her and caught her and J in the middle of putting up pickles! Wasn’t it nice of her to stop what she was doing and give me the recipe?
I wanted hers because I tasted her blackberry bounce and raspberry bounce, and they were great. Every recipe I found online was slightly different. Confusing!
Pretty simple ingredients. Booze (gin, brandy, grain alcohol…I chose vodka), fruit and sugar. I didn’t have 1/2 gallon jars, so I thought in terms of ratio when approaching the recipe.
It said: 1 quart fruit, 2 cups sugar, 1 quart (or a fifth) of booze.
I say, skip trying to find half gallon jars. Don’t go buy quart jars. Use old quart pickle or olive jars. This helped me also figure out how to make the cherry bounce in a larger jar (about 1 1/2 quarts) and blueberry in a smaller job (something like 2 1/2 cups).
2 parts fruit – pricked with a fork so it infuses better
1 part sugar
2 parts booze
Wash the fruit. Break the skin. Put it in the jar.
Pour the sugar on top.
Pour the booze into the jar until it’s full.
Don’t stir. Screw the lid on tightly. Put jar in a cool, dark place. Shake once every two weeks for two months to distribute the sugar and fruit flavor.
The original recipe says to toss the fruit when you strain off the liquore at the end of the waiting period. Are they crazy? B & J said the fruit was great on ice cream. Mmm.
Blueberry, Cherry and Plum Bounce ready for the pantry! Very simple.
There was no recipe for blueberry, so I made less of that. But they make raspberry, so why not try it?
Picked the first of my homegrown tomatoes today. They’re grape tomatoes. I also have some pink heirloom tomatoes, Early Girls and Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes on the way.
Replanted the cucumber to the herb garden and installed the nasturtiums that I bought at the Santa Clarita Farmer’s Market today.
All this makes me very happy.
You are so creative! I’ve never heard of a bounce! What does it taste like when it’s through bouncing? You are so interesting and I love reading your blogs! It is such a nice pleasant break in the day….thank you, thank you, thank you..
Love Ya,
Leigh
Aw, thanks so much for reading and commenting, Leigh! Really means a lot to me.
When I tasted the blackberry and cherry that my friend made, I thought it was strong homemade fruit wine. With quite a kick! Hope mine turn out as well.
[...] Click here for the basic recipe. Using quart jars makes it easiest, but you can do it in whatever size jars you have if you’re decent at cooking math. In this case, I replaced 1/4 of the vodka with brandy. I would have made it half and half, but I didn’t have enough brandy on hand. Oops. I haven’t made apricot before, but the brandy/vodka mix was phenomenal in the peach I tried last year. [...]
[...] number of fruits such as blackberry, plum. It’s basically what we make as a cordial, using what fruits are at hand, and what liquor you prefer – rum and brandy being the most historically [...]