Plum jerkum is an alcoholic drink produced from plums. It has been variously described as made in the same way as cider[1] and as a fruit wine,[2] although the terminology implies slightly different methods.
The drink is native to the north Cotswolds[3] and particularly to the county of Worcestershire, where plum cultivation was once centred on Pershore and the Vale of Evesham; it was also found around Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire.[4] [5] Jerkum was known as a traditional product of Worcester along with potted lamperns and curd cheesecakes.[6] A 19th-century reference, again from Worcester, suggests that it was often taken mixed with cider to reduce its strength: "plum jerkum is [...] the fermented juice of plums, and is a very heady liquor. In the country they often mix it with cider, and thus moderate its effect [...] A man who was brought before the Pershore magistrates on a charge of drunkenness confessed he had a drop too much of it. Perhaps he took it neat".[7]
The jerkum made around Chipping Campden was made, for preference, from a dark bullace-like plum found in the area's villages: however it ranged in colour from "a deep purple to a claret red", and in flavour "from a sticky sweetness to a sparkling tartness" depending on the type of plum used.[8]
The Worcestershire author and farmer Fred Archer mentions jerkum several times in his stories of rural life,[9] as does John Moore in his books set around a fictionalised Bredon Hill.
Some aficionados in American craft beverages have started to use "jerkum" as a broader term encompassing the alcoholic drink produced from any unadulterated fermented stone fruit (e.g., nectarine, peach, apricot, pluot).[10]