Only plums grown inside the prefecture may be used — green ones or fully ripened ones, and nothing brought in from outside. Fruit from elsewhere disqualifies the name entirely.

The steeping, the storage during production and the filling of the bottles must all happen within the prefecture as well. The alcohol has to fall between ten and thirty-five per cent. The specification goes down to the numbers.

The designation came on the seventh of September 2020. It was the thirteenth protected origin granted to any alcoholic drink in this country, and the first that had ever been granted to a liqueur rather than to a sake, a shochu or a wine.

Wakayama is steep country and it rains a great deal, and it has a long history of making things by fermentation — a history the designation explicitly took into account rather than judging the drink on flavour alone. Steeping plums in spirit is one expression of a place that has always had to preserve what it grew before the weather took it. What the name protects, in the end, is not a flavour but a location — the hillsides, the rain, and the requirement that the fruit never leave them before it goes into the jar.