Plum jerkum and in flavour "from a sticky sweetness to a sparkling tartness" depending on the type of plum used. The Worcestershire author and farmer Fred Archer mentions jerkum several times in his stories of rural life, 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). Plum jerkum Plum jerkum is an alcoholic drink produced from plums. It has been variously described as made in the same
Plum cake currants were used, which in the English language were referred to as plums since around 1660. The various types of dried fruit (grapes, currants and raisins) were familiar to English kitchens through trade with The Levant and Mediterranean but before they became available through "trouble-free" imports from Australia, South Africa and California, preparing them required "an immense amount of labour ... on account of the rough and ready methods by which the fruit was picked, dried, packed and exported". In 1881 Colonel Henry-Herbert said that "a good English plum cake...is a national institution". At times, Thomas Carlyle was one among