The Great Sloe Gin Challenge – Three variations of our sloe gin recipe
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Liqueurs | 162 comments
Beautiful ripe sloes on the bush in September
“Pick after the first frosts,” advise the traditionalists.
“Pick them in September, before the bushes are stripped bare,” chortle the enthusiastic.
“Pick them now and give them a chilly blast in the freezer, to give the effect of the first frost,” suggest the practical.
There are other questions too. If the sloes are left to mature until the first frosts, do they have a better flavour? Does the quality of gin affect the liqueur? Should one strain gin from the sloes after three months, six months, ever?
I telephoned Gilbert to discuss this multiple conundrum. His advice was simple.
“Whatever you do, write it down on a label and stick it on the bottle. Then, if your brew is superb, you have the recipe. Note the tree, the time of picking, the gin and the amount of sugar and sloes. If you used almond essence, note how much on each label.”
I recalled that the most interesting part of his cellar was the vast liqueur wall. The label on each bottle and demijohn was covered in microscopic notes.
“Remember that the combination of gin, sloes and sugar is always better that the separate ingredients, no matter what you do.”
He is right. sloe gin sipped on a cold winter’s night is deliciously dangerous.
We have decided to run The Cottage Smallholder sloe gin test. We are going to make sloe gin now under laboratory conditions in the Cottage Smallholder kitchen. The sloe gin will by tasted and evaluated by a team of three experienced sloe gin drinkers.
Using the same gin (supermarket medium quality) and the same recipe, we are going to make sloe gin with three batches of sloes harvested from the same tree.
- The first bottle will contain freshly picked sloes, picked now in mid September.
- The second will have fresh sloes picked now but which will have had a night in the freezer.
- After the first frosts we are going to return to the same tree with a ladder to collect the frosted sloes that an average height forager can’t reach. The third bottle will contain these.
We will publish are results in a few months time.
Two years later we published the results of the sloe gin recipe challenge.
Sloe Gin Recipe:
Ingredients:
- 1lb/454gm of washed sloes
- 4 ozs/112gm of white granulated sugar
- 1 75cl bottle of medium quality gin
- Sterilised 1 litre (at least) Le Parfait jar or wide necked bottle
- 1 small quarter tsp almond essence
Method:
- Wash sloes well and discard any bruised or rotten fruit. Prick fruit several times with a fork and place sloes in either a large Kilner/Le Parfait jar or a wide necked 1 litre bottle. I put several sloes in my palm to prick them rather than picking them up one by one.
- Using a funnel, add the sugar and top up with gin to the rim. Always open sugar bags over the sink as sugar tends to get caught in the folds at the top of the bag.
- Add the almond essence.
- Shake every day until the sugar is dissolved and then store in a cool, dark place until you can resist it no longer (leave for at least three months, we usually let it mature for a year).
- Some people strain the grog (through muslin/jelly bag) after 3 months and bottle it, leaving it mature for six months. We usually strain and bottle after a year. We use some beautiful old heine brandy bottles with cork lids. If you are feeling flush Lakeland sell some pretty bottles here. Don’t leave the straining process any longer than a year; leaving the fruit in too long can spoil the liqueur.
For loads more tricks and tips on making sloe gin see the original sloe gin recipe
Leave a reply
Picked 5lb of sloes yesterday, bought the gin and today I am making my first ever batch of sloe gin. Your site is just the ticket, with lots of helpful hints and like minded folk getting excited about making the most of nature’s fabulous harvest. The crop of sloes (to be honest pretty much everything in the hedgerows) this year in my corner of Oxfordshire are one of the best in years, blackberries in particular were astonishing. Must have been the floods! I am so please the boozy sloes will not be wasted as now plan to make the Sloe Sherry too. My recipe includes the use of cinnamon sticks, anyone have any feedback on the results of cinnamon as opposed to almond essence?
Lots of happy tipples to you all.
Hi Jose,
So pleased that you are going to make sloe gin. Glad that you are enjoying the site.
Thank you so much for the recipe for Pacharan – sounds delicious. I will definitely make this and let you know the results!
BTW
I thought you´d like to know to do Pacharan, tipical drink fron Navarra, a province in north of Spain, close to Vascongadas:
1 litre of Anisette and 1/4 Kg of sloe, and leave it to macerate for 6/8 months.
This spirit gets spoiled it you leave it longer.
Some people put some coffee beans and/or cinnamon stick into it.
Give a try and let me know
Cheers
Hi there
Trying to explain to my english friend what I was thinking to do (pacharan to be precise)with the sloes I picked this weekend, and trying to find out the name of the berry in english, I ended up in this wonderful site.
🙂
I just bought a litre of gin and I´m going to do sloe gin instead of pacharan. I drink pacharan quite often, but never sloe gin.
I´ll try also the sloe sherry with the drunk sloes
I´ll let U know
Thank you very much
Hi Kethry,
If you leave the sloes in too long they can foul the gin. If it tastes OK it is OK to drink. We leave sloes and damsons in for a maximum of a year.
on the subject of sloes.. i got to making the sloe gin this morning and remembered a bottle of the stuff mom had made me a while back… a 75cl bottle full (full of sloes, about half filled with gin), with the sloes still in it. I dug the rather dusty bottle out and it was dated 2001 (!). I drained it off, the sloes were rock solid, but the gin smelled good. Only got about 200ml if that, out of the bottle. Any thoughts as to whether this would be good or bad to drink?
Hi Colin
Thanks for your response. We are all set to go with a carrier bag of fresh sloes. Thanks.
You will get comments on your method, in time. It might be worth posting on a wine/liqueur making blog as well(I imagine that there must be loads out there).
Hi Jane,
There are loads of uses for spent sloes. We make a mean sloe sherry https://www.cottagesmallholder.com/?p=104
There are several ideas in the comments above and in the comments section on our other sloe gin post here https://www.cottagesmallholder.com/?p=37
Is there anything you can do with spent sloes after making sloe gin?
Yes – Add the gin after fermentation has finished and also sugar to taste. Strain the liquor off from the sloes prior to adding the gin. There appears no virtue in soaking the fermented must in gin, just a loss of gin.
Look forward to some other comments on this technique
Hi Colin,
Wow! This sounds amazing.
I make wine but in no way am I experienced enough to comment on your method. All I can say is that Danny read your comment, grabbed a carrier bag and left the house heading for the fat sloe hunting grounds!
Presumably the gin is added after fermentation has taken place?