Fermented sloe gin recipe: a new approach to making sloe gin
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Liqueurs | 52 comments
A dish of innocent ripe sloes waiting to be transmorigified
I love sloe gin and like most other sloe gin makers am keen to make a great brew. I hate to admit it but it would be great to impress my liqueur making guru, Gilbert. This recipe gives me the possiblity of two great outcomes. This new technique may produce a superb sloe gin opera or rolling of drums.
Colin Boswell wrote, “The secret of a good sloe gin is the extent to which the very high natural tannin content plus its other constituents have been extracted. I have found that replicating, as perhaps you have above (that’s me!), red wine production by fermenting the sloes on their skins makes an outstanding sloe gin. What you must beware of is that too high a concentration of sugar will kill the yeast and no fermentation will take place.
Layer 2 inches of frozen sloes interspaced with 3 tablespoons of sugar then another 2 inches of sloes and so forth in a fermentation bucket. Add a port wine or high alcohol yeast, probably fermenting out to 14deg. The more technical can measure the specific gravity before and after fermentation to gauge the alcohol content and how much sugar needs to be added.
Stand in a warm place, keep a close eye on fermentation and add small amounts of sugar until fermentation ceases.
Fermenting will of course raise the alcohol content but more importantly it extracts the full flavours of the sloes which other methods fail to do.
I would greatly appreciate the views of an experienced amateur winemaker on this.”
We make wine but are in no way experienced winemakers. So I couldn’t comment intelligently on the method. Instead I decided to give this method a go. I must admit I never would have considered fermenting the sloes before adding the gin but I haven’t been thinking laterally as regards sloe gin. I can see the wisdom behind this method, upping the alcohol level before adding the gin. As Colin says, why let the sloes become imbued with the gin – unless you are going to use the sloes for something else (they can be added to mince pies, Christmas cake, chocolate or the boozy crumble that will have you mother-in-law finally sleeping in a heap under the table).
For this experiment I am using 2 pounds of sloes (900g). I am planning to use the fermented sloes for sloe sherry.
You can get a range of good red wine yeasts online from many sources. I use the art of brewing .
I asked Colin for the ratio mix of fermented sloes to gin and received this reply.
“6l fermented sloe juice to .4l gin, assuming sloe juice has reached 15% alcohol, will give sloe gin at 25%. 50/50 gives 27.5% alcohol. By comparison, if the sloe juice was not fermented, alcohol content at .6l/.4l gin is 16% and at 50/50 20%. The gin and sloe juice need at least two months, preferably longer but should be acceptable by Christmas.
I also recommend the addition of juniper berries, 10 to a gallon of sloes.”
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Hi Simon,
This is Colin Boswell’s method of making sloe gin, rather than ours. Tis is my first year of making sloe gin in this way.
A large bowl would suffice, rather than a fermentation bucket for a small amount of sloes. The trick is to keep it closely covered (saucepan lid/cling film) otherwise small fruit flies may creep in and turn your brew to vinegar.
You need wine yeast for this. There is a link to where I buy mine on the post. The sachets say that they contain enough yeast fro 5 gallons of wine. Feeling tight I just used a bit of the yeast and minimal fermentation occurred. I put in the rest and suddenly everything was moving and shaking. You need to activate the yeast before adding it (follow the directions on the pack).
You add the juice to the gin. The ratio is in the post – 6 litres of sloe juice to 4 litres of gin. You will have to do the maths when you measure how much juice you have after fermentation.
I’d love to hear how you get on!
I’ve been making Sloe Gin for a couple of years now and thought it time to try a new recipe. I was very interested by your idea of fermenting the sloes but with no wine making experience was wondering if you could clarify a few points for a novice like me.
I don’t have a fermentation bucket and only a relatively small number of sloes. Could you explain the ratio of sugar to sloes to yeast so that I can make it in a smaller batch?
I’m also a little unclear once you have fermented the sloes what you do next. Do you discard the sloes and add the juice to the gin or the other way round?
Hope you can help – I’m looking forward to getting started!
Hi Lindsey,
Great hearing about your grog experiments with haws! I haven’t tried sloe vodka. I must give it a go.
Well done with the damsons and also doing the deal with the pub.
I picked about 6-7lb of haws and have put 5lb in a plastic dustbin with boiling water for 7 days, stirring daily, for wine. The others have gone into bottles with vodka and no sugar to make schnapps. I found tincture recipes with brandy on some of the herbal sites, but “take a few drops to strengthen your heart” isn’t good enough for us alcoholics!
Once this is made – at least 6 to 7 weeks – I am planning to add different sugar syrups – made with honey, white sugar and brown sugar-to some of the bottles to make liqueurs and see which is best. I’ve only got 4 x 500ml olive oil jars of schnappps for liqueurs (I am definitely keeping some as schnapps as it is a novel drink to offer friends!) from this haul so I’m sort of hoping there is no particularly brilliant liqueur eg with honey as it is a long time till next autumn!
The berries have lost their colour and gone reddish brown and not coloured the vodka which is very unlike sloes and damsons but maybe it will come.. The wine isn’t giving off a particularly fab smell but it is, after all, good for the heart!
Will go for the fermented sloe gin but am going to use vodka as you get more of the taste of the sloes.
Got 11lbs of damsons in abt 45mins and have made damson wine to my partner’s grandfather’s recipe, juice for the kids, frozen 6lbs till the jam jar collection increases, and given some to extremely grateful friends who don’t have time to go picking on warm, sunny days. Will def try the cheese though! Thanks for that. (Oh, and the local pub has agreed to save all the 25cl wine bottles and lids so can decant things into suitable gift sizes now, and it’ll be perfect for the marrow rum etc which smells as though small quantities only should be quaffed for our own safety!)
Hi Lindsey,
I have never made Hawthorn berry liqueur so I can’t help with a recipe. Why not use the basic sloe gin recipe, I am sure that it would work.
I vote for you making the fermented sloe gin. I’d love to compare notes.
Have you thought of damson jelly and damson cheese? Both delicious. We have a recipe for damson cheese here https://www.cottagesmallholder.com/?p=45
Although I now use this method for all fruit cheeses, it is easy and far more restful https://www.cottagesmallholder.com/?p=467
I’ve just been out for a walk – glorious day after hard ground frost this morning- and picked 3lbs of sloes. Now, I’ve already made sloe gin and sloe vodka so am debating whether to try sloe and apple cheese or fermented sloe gin. your votes please! Also I have 5lbs of haws so am going to make haw wine but want to use some for hawthorn berry liqueur which is mentioned everywhere but I can’t find a decent recipe. Has anyone ever made it?
Right, now off to pick more damsons. We have a damson orchard nearby, very old and abandoned, and the trees are groaning. Sadly, I am running out of demijohns fast to cope with this year’s abundant hedgerow harvest so it may be jam-making time rather than more damson wine!
Hi Martin,
What a shame about the hedge trimming. I use a walking stick for foraging. Blackthorn branches are quite whippy and the handle of the stick grabs them well.
Freezing the sloes is a good trick. Thanks for dropping by.
After reading about sloe picking spurred me on to go out to a nearby field hedgerow that is normally good for sloes, brambles and hops, but I was disapointed , as I forgot that the hedges had been cut back severly in the early part of the year to make the path wider. Most of the sloes were about 8-10 feet off the ground due to the fact that the lower branches had been cut away.So I had to go back home to improvise a hook to bend down the whippier branches to allow me to pick a few. I got enough to keep me satisfied, but there are so many out of reach. A passing horse rider offered me her horse to reach up from (she was jesting of course) but she was right in that it needed a ladder or something to get at them.
I have put them in the freezer as I was told some time ago that this helps break the cells open, and means you don’t have to prick the berries when you bottle them. It worked last year.
Martin
Hi Amanda
As these sloes are frosted in your freezer you can skip waiting for the first frost and dive in now! We have early sloe gatherers aound here so I’ve been picking for the last month.
I do have a secret place that I visit after the first frosts!
This is fascinating! I’ve been good, haven’t picked one sloe yet. Of course I shall kick myself if others have found my favourite picking place. I did notice that someone had googled – ‘where to pick sloes in Surrey’ which had led them to my blog. As if anybody in their right mind would advertise this.