Sloe Gin ~ by Tom

Very good to see this blog on making sloe gin. One suggestion: I’ve made this for years and have long since abandoned the most tedious part of the process - pricking the sloes, which my experiments have shown to be entirely unecessary. Results are just as good without doing it. In fact the traditional reason for picking after the first frost is because that it often splits the fruit, or weakens it, and thus naturally produces the same (supposed) result of pricking. I once made slow gin with mushy fruit which produced a cloudy result which actually, in my view, had a lot to recommend it - more fruit, intriguing fruity texture. I am not a wine maker but, no doubt. a quick ref. to a text on clarification might help where liquer is cloudy. Some recipes suggest (nay insist) on burnt almonds being included but I have found this makes little difference. I completely agree that used as a sauce to ice-cream it’s wonderful.

At least one commercial Sloe Gin uses base spirit (vodka) to make Sloe Gin. Gin is this plus Juniper berries, hence Sloe Gin is this plus Sloe berries. Particularly so if you do not like the taste of Juniper berries.

Very nice drink.

If you are feeling lazy you can put the sloes in the freezer overnight. This means you don`t have to prick them before you add them to the gin.
Does anyone have any ideas for the strained sloes? I usually just compost them but would love a recipe!

I haven’t tried this recipe for sloe truffles but it sounds really good - gin-soaked sloes mixed with melted chocolate and cream (you have to take the stones out of the sloes of course) http://www.sloe.biz/pip/viewtopic.php?t=171

Hi ,I use castor sugar and always put a cinamon stick in each bottle that I make, I use a blackthorne to prick the sloes with ,and as for losing colour over time? I have 2 bottles of 3 year old sloe gin and the colour and taste just keeps inproving.

Catherine I have made the Sloe truffles and they are DIVINE!

Hi, I saw a recipe/method somewhere for using spent sloes to
favour icecream. I can’t recall although I have a feeling it involves removing pulp from fruit - Any ideas if this sounds correct. Thanks for any thoughts Jilly

Hi Jilly - Why not make a sloe gin ripple to get around the stone problem. Soften the fruit in a pan with a little water, and just push it all through a sieve removing stones and skins in one go. Make a sauce with it and and ripple it into some softened vanilla ice cream. You don’t want too much alcohol in your ice-cream or it won’t freeze properly.

With un-ginned sloes you could try the bramble sorbet recipe at http://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/wild-food/blackberries/ and subsitute sloes for brambles. You might want to do half and half sloes and cultivated plums - sloes are pretty tart. You also might want to put in a bit more sugar too. Lovely, plummy flavour. I’ve tried this and it looks spectacular - a really amazing purple!

Hi jade, just idea for the sloes once you’ve finished with them - add a hndful to gravy when your making a roast, give a beautiful fruity kick. I keep mine in the freezer, although they don’t actually freeze because of all the alcohol in them.

I agree with John, not seen any evidence of sloe gin losing colour or taste, quite the opposite - but how has he managed to not drink it for 3 years??!! amazing!

Just tasted my 1st Sloe Taquila! Mmm. worth a repeat next year me thinks!

I love the sound of the Sloe Sorbet, I am definately going to try your recipe next autumn. We also love Sloe Gin here at Littlecote Farm. In fact I have designed a whole “Sloe Gin” Natural Bath range using real Sloe Gin !! We handmake our soaps, Bath Fizz and Bath Salts on our working farm at The Littlecote Soap Co.

HELP, i have been looking for sloes now for a couple of weeks, i refuse to pay the £10 per pound that people are asking on e-bay. can anyone point me in the right direction????

Kind regards
Chloe

Can anyone help, I’ve done the Sloe berry Gin, now I want to have a go at Bramble Gin?
What do I do?
Thanks Eric.

Hi there i found sloes out on the bushes this time last year when riding my horse. so i took her back with her saddle bags the next week. after persuading her to stand still i picked shed loads of sloe berries. i slit each of them with a knife (on an evening whilst watching telly - less monotonous) before dividing them between big glass jars and then added the same amount of sugar and the same amount of alcohol - i just guessed at this with friends help. therefore each glass jar had a third alcohol a third sugar and a third berries. i used vodka, gin and tequila. the vodka has by far been the best; the liquer made is beautifully sweet and very drinkable. the gin i’m less into but i’m not really a gin drinker and the tequila i didn’t think really benefited from the sloe berrys. but ive beeen leaving them all till this xmas as i was told it tkes a year for them really to ‘mature’, so we’ll see.

anyway it’s sorted out xmas pressies for all my family - i’m just going to package them up in nice bottles and then go out and collect more fornext year!

I live in North Warwickshire and find that most of the blackthorn bushes don’t have many sloes on - where are they? I too would like to know if anyone can give any information on the disappearing sloes. Also, where can I but blackthorn bushes??

Spelling error - should read “where can I buy blackthorn bushes?

Hi Eric t Red

I think you just do the same with the brambles as you did with the sloes, except you won’t need to prick the fruit because the skins are much thinner & you probably won’t need as much sugar since they’re much sweeter. Would make lovely flavoured vodka I think.