Rumtopf (Part 1)

Last month at a Christmas party, Susan handed me a small glass containing a mysterious alcoholic beverage and told me to try it. I did. The drink was fruity, super sweet, and super, super strong. These Irish lips have tasted their fair share of booze, and I’ve never tasted anything like that! Later in the evening we tracked down the gentleman who had brought the homemade-looking jar of alcohol to the party. The man was Swedish, and the concoction he had brought was called “Rumtopf.”

According to Wikipedia, Rumtopf (which translates to “rum pot”) is a “German and Danish dessert, traditionally eaten around Christmas.” Originally it was a way for people to keep fruit that matured in the spring and summer from going bad, preserving it until the winter. The ingredients are simple (fruit, sugar, and rum) and the recipe is just as easy. Add fruit and sugar in a 2:1 ratio to your pot. Add rum (ideally dark, flavorless, and 100-110 proof) so that it covers the fruit by at least an inch. Seal the jar, store it in a dark, cool place, and wait. As other fruits become available throughout the year, you can add them to the mixture too, along with more sugar and more rum. When you’re all done adding things, you seal the jar up tight and let it sit for an additional six weeks.

Then, it’s party time.

Eventually you end up with two things, the first of which being a jar full of fruit that’s been soaking in sugar and rum for several months. According to what I’ve read, the fruit is traditionally served on top of cake, pie, pudding, or ice cream. I’m in. The other thing you get is a jar full of sweet, fruit-flavored rum, ready for guzzling.

Rumtopf!

There’s something appealing about things people can’t obtain right now. Right now, I have immediate access to at least 5,000 digital movies, and tens of thousands of songs. Through Amazon, I can order pretty much anything you can imagine, from a life-size wall decal of an old Asian man to a toy pickle that yodels, delivered to my house in 48 hours. We now have vending machines for pizzas, live crabs, and cars. My dad once paid to have a pizza made in Chicago shipped to him in Oklahoma. My point is, essentially anything we want, we can have without waiting.

But not Rumtopf. You can’t buy it in the liquor store, or on Amazon. You can’t even hurry it along. Every time you open that jar and add more fruit to it, you’ve got to wait another six weeks. And I like that. I like that idea that there’s no short cut. No matter how much money you have, or how important you are, or who you know, or whatever, you have to wait.

I have to wait.

I’m making Rumtopf.

My journey began with a trip to the local credit union. Susan was there to do grown-up things, like apply for a loan during the furlough, but I had my own agenda — cashing in all the spare change I’ve been saving. A few minutes later, I had $76.50 in cash, two arcade tokens, a handful of Canadian coins, and a few pennies too grimy for the machine to process.

With cash in hand, we made two more stops: the liquor store, where I picked up half a gallon of 100 proof Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum, and then to Aldi’s, where we purchased a bag of pears and four pounds of sugar.

Back home, Susan sliced up the pears.

I used my digital scale to weigh everything, although none of this seems like an exact science. We started with two pounds of sliced pears, one pound of sugar… and half a gallon of Captain Morgan’s rum.

Then, following the recipe, we placed the Rumtopf in the corner of the pantry. I’ll definitely be adding some peaches, pineapple, plums, and cherries as time goes on. For anyone interested in playing along, I’m loosely following this recipe, although every recipe you find is essentially the same.

And now…

…we…

…wait.