"If a person is a rice ball and what's great about the person is a pickled plum, then maybe your plum is on your back!" - Tohru Honda, Episode 5 (2019 anime)

Inspiration

The name "Fruits Basket"  refers to a childhood game (also called "Fruit Basket Turnover" or otherwise) where each participant is assigned a fruit corresponding to a group. Tohru Honda, one of the main characters in the Fruits Basket series, shares a childhood memory of being excluded from a game because she was called a rice ball instead of a fruit. Since rice balls "don't belong" in a fruits basket, her name was never called. Instead of being put down by these comments, she embraces it as part of her optimistic outlook on life. She later explains how the best part of a rice ball, the pickled plum, is often hidden on the back, where others can’t see it.

This drink takes inspiration directly from the scene animated in the 2019 anime where a classmate of a young Tohru calls out specific fruits: an apple, a banana, a cherry, a pear, a peach, and also Tohru, the rice ball. To complete the homage, a small smear of pickled plum (umeboshi) is hidden on the back of the glass, echoing her symbolic conversation with Kyo later in the series.

This drink was developed for and showcased during our second annual independent charity event, Mixing Drinks and Changing Lives, which you can view on YouTube. We raised money for Made By Dyslexia and chose Fruits Basket as one of our featured manga because it reflects a unique relationship many people with dyslexia have with books. It also has a couple of anime adaptations that are very personally significant for my Dearest and me.

Workshopping

The Fruits in Fruits Basket

In Episode 5 of the 2019 Fruits Basket anime, Tohru recalls a childhood memory of playing Fruits Basket. One classmate calls out, "You’re an apple. You’re a banana. A cherry! A pear! A peach! Honda, you’re a riceball!" Later, Tohru explains to Kyo that rice balls often have pickled plums hidden on their backs. I know that kid was trying to bully Tohru, but let’s be real, if rice balls have plums on them, that basically makes them fruit too. Clearly, that kid has questionable taste in fruit and probably doesn’t even respect tomatoes or avocados (which are fruits, by the way, look it up). But I digress. That scene became the blueprint for the drink: it had to include apple, banana, cherry, pear, peach, rice, and plum.

When selecting the ingredients, I wanted to be thoughtful about how each fruit would be represented. In an ideal world, I could have custom-processed every one: fresh apples peeled and juiced, banana oleo saccharum made from the peels, even a homemade pickled plum paste. But with just a few weeks to prepare for the charity stream, I focused on readily available options. The apples came from those school-lunch-style containers of juice. The bananas were blended into a purée, evoking the strawberry banana smoothies my Dearest loves from a couple of major fast food chains. The cherry element came from the leftover juice of maraschino cherry jars. For the peach, I used Simply Peach, since I couldn’t find a proper peach nectar. Pear juice proved harder to source, so I made my own by blending, juicing, and filtering ripe D’Anjou pears. I gave a bit of extra attention to the plum and rice components, since they were key to tying the drink back to Tohru’s rice ball analogy and the symbolic pickled plum on the back.

Rice in a Drink?

Rice has found its way into a wide variety of traditional and modern drinks. Think of sake, the classic Japanese rice wine; horchata, the creamy rice-based drink from Latin America; or amazake, a sweet, low-alcohol rice drink enjoyed warm or cold. There's even rice milk as a dairy alternative, and shochu, which can be made from rice among other things (a spirit that I first began exploring with Sonic the Highball). But rice doesn’t often make its way into cocktails, at least not traditionally. A while back, I came across an article on Punch discussing Leyenda's Negroni de Nubes, a cocktail where sushi rice is stirred directly into the drink to soften and round out the flavors. If rice can mellow the bold bitterness of a Negroni, I figured it might also work in a softer, fruitier drink. To this end, since I wasn’t planning to stir or blend the drink, I decided to use pre-prepped rice water. This is the water left over after rinsing clean rice, specifically, after the first rinse has already removed any dirt or debris. I stirred the cleaned rice in fresh water for about a couple of minutes, then strained it out before it had a chance to fully absorb the liquid. The result is a lightly starchy rice water that adds subtle texture and a thematic nod to the rice ball.

Rice Water:

• 1 cup Rinsed Rice

• 2 cups Water

• Stir briefly until the water becomes significantly cloudy

The Plum on My Back

I had a few ideas for how to include plum in the drink, and I started with what I knew. My first thought was umeshu (Japanese plum wine). Conveniently, I had three tiny bottles my parents picked up for me on a concert trip to Japan: an extra-aged, a honey, and a shiso-infused version. It would have been a fun excuse to open them, but given how accessible the other ingredients were, it didn’t feel right to spotlight something so niche. So I grabbed a bottle of Choya umeshu with whole plums inside (more common for me here in Philly), thinking I might use that instead.

But then a new idea hit: what if I used umeboshi specifically, the pickled plum you often find tucked inside rice balls? Around that time, I stumbled across a Japanese-inspired bar in Philly that had cocktails on the menu featuring “umeboshi” and “salted plum shrub.” I went to try it out, and it turns out they were the same thing: a tart, vinegary plum solution mixed right into the drink. One such cocktail paired it with cucumber, black sesame, and mirin, and was available with a choice of shochu. I tried one with Jougo, made from brown sugar, which had lovely floral tones and almost a caramelly softness. The other cocktail used Sudachi, a citrus shochu that immediately brought to mind the cucumber salads you get at Japanese restaurants: bright, crisp, and super nostalgic. That one ended up being my favorite.

That drink got me thinking. Instead of using a whole plum as a garnish or flavoring the drink, why not highlight the contrast, just like the pickled plum on the back of a rice ball? So I bought some umeboshi paste and gave it a try. It’s a lot. Salty, funky, tangy. Not for everyone. So I added a small smear of it to the back of the glass, just like the metaphor. Lick it before or after a sip, and you’ll get a little jolt of contrast: a bold, salty moment tucked into something soft and fruity. My fellow mixologist Imichao agreed it helped balance the drink’s sweetness. With that final element in place, the Fruits Basket cocktail just needed a recipe.

My Basket is Fair

Unlike the game set up by that bully from Tohru's childhood, my Fruits Basket was going to be fair to all of the fruits (and the not-so-fruits). Everybody in the basket deserved to shine in their own way. But balancing their personalities, err, I mean, flavors, was no easy task.

I began with equal parts of apple, banana, cherry, pear, and peach. After a good shake and taste, banana made the boldest entrance, loud and eager, like a kid who needs to be seen first. Cherry followed with its punchy, borderline medicinal flair. The result was intense and a bit chaotic.

To smooth things out, I brought in an ounce of rice water. This addition grounded the drink, softening banana's edge and letting cherry rise momentarily. Still, the ensemble wasn't quite clicking.

I started adjusting: cutting cherry juice in half, scaling back banana, letting peach and pear come forward. With each tweak, I imagined a better-balanced cast, no divas stealing the spotlight, just a team playing in harmony.

Eventually, I arrived at a ratio that felt right (sans alcohol, for now). Banana became more of a supporting textural element. Cherry dialed down its volume. Peach and pear emerged as the steady, friendly chorus. Apple stayed crisp and cool in the background. And rice? Rice, as played by Tohru Honda, steady and comforting, tying the whole thing together. The umeboshi? That’s her hidden plum: a punch of complexity you might not expect, but one that sticks with you (just like it stuck to the glass).

(Yes, this section absolutely owes something to my middle school theater days. No regrets.)

Fruits Basket (Non-Alcoholic):

• 1.5 oz (45 ml) Apple Juice (Nature’s Nectar)

• 1 oz (30 ml) Banana Purée

• 0.5 oz (15 ml) Maraschino Cherry Juice (Giant Brand)

• 1.5 oz (45 ml) Pear Juice

• 1 oz (30 ml) Peach Juice (Simply Peach)

• 1 oz (30 ml) Rice Water

• Method: Shake & Double-Strain

• Garnish: Pickled Plum (Umeboshi) Purée Smear

Booze? In My Basket?

This is a cocktail blog, after all, so of course we’ve gotta add some booze in here somewhere. Funnily enough, this was one of the rare times I built the mocktail first and considered the alcohol only at the end. My first thought had been to use plum wine as a base, but when that didn’t pan out, I reached the end of the recipe and suddenly realized, “Wait a sec… this doesn’t have any alcohol in it.”

To keep the spirit of the drink light and fruit-forward, I decided to tweak the juice ratios and introduce a splash of rum. I haven’t done a lot of deep dives into rum yet, but I’ve seen it pop up in plenty of blended daiquiri-style drinks loaded with fruit, so it felt like a natural choice. I went with a white rum, something clean and neutral that wouldn’t overwhelm the flavors already working together.

Flavor Analysis

Cocktail: Like sipping on a rum-spiked banana fruit smoothie. Peach, cherry, and banana take center stage, while subtle notes of pear and apple round out the background. The texture is lush, and the transition from a salty umeboshi lick to a sweet sip creates a memorable shift in flavor.

Mocktail: Smooth and fruity, with dominant notes of peach and cherry, followed by gentle hints of apple and pear. The banana lends body more than flavor, creating a drink that feels like a silky smoothie. Paired with the pickled plum garnish, each sip is a surprising and delightful contrast: salty at first, then bright and sweet.