Free sloe gin in return for foraging rights
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Liqueurs | 25 comments
Sloes cost nothing to harvest – here they are on a blackthorn tree
Today, I was in our local shop, chatting to John about home made grog. Having lived in this area all his life he is a wonderful source of local knowledge and has a great fund of stories and reminiscences about the locals, living and dead.
“Aren’t the sloes amazing this year?” John remarked
“Where are these amazing sloes?” My foraging antennae were instantly alert.
“In my garden. They are hanging like bunches of grapes. Perhaps they have spoilt by now.”
Within a nano second I twigged that he wasn’t going to harvest the fruit himself. As he works a seven day week, it was probably a question of time. He would enjoy the novelty of bottle of sloe gin made from his own sloes.
“Do you like sloe gin?” The tone calm. 40 ton air brakes held my growing excitement.
“Of course I do.”
“How about swapping the picking rights in your garden for a bottle of superb grog.”
“Yes please!”
Jalopy and I rumbled over to John’s house after work today. I found the large sprawling blackthorn bush in the corner of his back garden, absolutely laden down with large, juicy black sloes. The nearest road must be 300 yards away and the garden overlooks farmland, so pollution would be minimal. I stood and gazed at this bounty, amazed at my good fortune.
Picking sloes is normally a time consuming and laborious affair. Today, with sloes hanging like small bunches of grapes, I picked for an hour and the resulting bounty weighed in at two kilos! I’ll be back tomorrow with my walking stick. This pulls down the taller branches that are out of reach. The stick transforms me from diminutive smallholder to giant hunter in the foraging stakes.
I will be able to experiment endlessly with the sloe gin recipes on the blog and also make a decent amount of Sloe and Bramley jelly. This is a punchy, versatile jelly, really great with sausages and for pepping up casseroles and sauces. If you are not into fruit liqueurs, our sloe and Bramley jelly is the most useful one in our larder and makes a great present for a foodie.
I might even have enough to try sloe vodka this year.
The moral of this story is to talk. Mention your hedgerow fruit quest at every pertinent opportunity. Keep on enquiring and chatting. Tell people what you are looking for and why. Nobody I know would turn down the prospect of a free bottle of sloe gin, a jar of membrillo, wild plum chutney or bottle of raspberry wine etc. for directions to a new source or an invitation to harvest the fruits in a private garden or estate. John’s sloes may well have rotted in his garden whilst Jalopy and I searched in wider and wider circles for the fruit. Now everyone is happy and sloe wise I am probably the happiest forager in Cambridgeshire tonight.
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I held off until the first frosts – unbelievable restraint shown for me! We picked them last week during the half term. My friend and I wrapped the children up warm, it was a wet drizzly day. She’d not had sloe gin before so I got her to try it. She then declared we had to go and pick some. As people walked by my eldest kept saying ‘Mummy is going to make a LOT of sloe gin.’ The sloes are now in the freezer. The sloe gin that we made last year is absolutely gorgeous I could quite happily drink it every evening and am now regretting giving so much of it away. Question for you. The fruit which is starting to shrivel, will this still make good sloe gin?
Well done on your pickings. I wasn’t sure if it was ok to pick sloes still so i will nip out and have a look in the next few days, although our sloes like the elderberries haven’t done well because of the flood, but there is always next year and I still have some sloe gin from last year to drink.
Sara from farmingfriends
I picked sloes at the weekend – I think they’re at their best right now. And your friend is right – they are hanging like grapes this year! On the way back from the shops on Saturday, my little one fell asleep in the pushchair which gave me 20 minutes in which time I managed to pick a kilo of fruit.
I’m interested in the sloe and bramley jelly – I like the sound of it, but my other half doesn’t like sweet things in meat – is it sweet enough to go on toast?
Hi Richard,
The sloe and bramley jelly is sweet enough to have on toast (similar to a dark bitter marmalade). It has loads of depth and a sloey edge to it. Slightly bittersweet.
I don’t think that the little one would like it on toast, though.
Hi Spidra Webster,
I am thinking of growing blackthorn in a wild area of the garden here.
PS Really enjoyed visiting your site.
Hi Sarah,
This is really interesting. I have met one UK resident who drinks sloe gin and tonic with ice but most of us just drink it neat. In the UK only Gordon™s make an off the shelf sloe gin – which I have not tasted.
The home made stuff is well worth making if you can get hold of the sloes. It also matures and gets better the longer you leave it.
Glad that you are enjoying the blog.
Hi Pat,
I do hope that you find some sloes soon..
Hi Jules,
What a shame. I think everyone was out picking early this year.
Hi Celia,
I am going to plant blackthorn in a wild area at the back of the cottage. I picked masses in John’s garden over the weekend. The sloes hung in groups of ten or twenty fruit. Unbelievable.
Inspired by you I bought a litre of vodka when I went to Tesco to stock up on gin.
Well done! that sounds like a good deal. Local shops are so useful – more than just places to buy a few essentials.
Yesterday we harvested the sloes from our little blackthorn bush – destined to make a bottle of sloe vodka later today. This bush was a tiny sucker pulled from a hedge, planted in a pot and intended for our semi-woodland garden at a previous house. We then had to relocate and the pot travelled with us to a rented house (with dozens of other pots) for 6 months. It is now planted on the bank of the brook which runs along our boundary and this year is about 3 metres high! Due for some trimming to make it more bushy.
Single estate sloe vodka – can’t wait!
I love sloe gin.I missed out on this years harvest.
What a lucky find!!!!! Well done you!!! and all the best on your Sloe adventures.
I have been curiously following the posts and comments on Sloe Gin. Here in the United States (or at least in the Pacific NW) Sloe Gin is not a popular drink, it is mostly used in mixed drinks, especially a Sloe Gin Fizz (Sloe Gin and lemon juice, shaken with ice and topped with club soda).
My husband & I went out on our once a month date to a nice restaurant a few nights ago, and I decided I should order Sloe Gin, I really had no idea what to expect. I asked for it neat with a side of ice. The waiter thought I was strange to order Sloe Gin, especially to order it unmixed, the bar had only one brand, DeKuyper. I tasted flavors of cherry, plum, and almond¦I liked it enough to try making some, I know homemade will taste much better! After some research I determined that Blackthorn will grow in Portland Oregon, I have found a source for the plants, but I really want to buy fruit; tomorrow I am going to the farmers market to see what I can find (I™m also looking for green tomatoes for the mince pie recipe).
Thanks for writing such an interesting and educational blog!
Between you and the Wiggly Wigglers podcast, I’m now after pulling down the ugly hedge between my neighbor and I a replacing it with blackthorn.