Two recipes: Wild Damson Gin and Sloe Gin recipes
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Liqueurs | 713 comments
Wild damsons are a beautiful rich dark colour
Unlike sloes, wild damsons are hard to find. For every thirty wild plum trees there may be just one wild damson tree. When I spot wild damsons in the hedgerows, they are harvested into a special bag.
These, and the diminutive bullace, are the kings of hedgerow fruit. These tiny fruit make such an irresistible liqueur that overnight guests have actually turned down Danny’s famous cooked breakfast, and gone back to bed to sleep off the excesses of the night before.
Our damson and sloe gin is not the thick ultra sweet variety. We prefer the sugar to enhance rather than shield the flavour. Every three months or so it’s sampled and, if necessary, topped up with sugar. Usually no extra sugar is needed.
We try to keep our damson and sloe gin well away from the drinks tray! Each year we make a lot of fruit gin and vodka (more recipes to follow, in time). Sloe gin is the big craze at the moment around here, as sloes are more plentiful.
Here are our recipes for both. We are also starting experimenting with sloe gin see this post for details
Tips and tricks:
- Make more than you need the first year, so you can compare different vintages. This liqueur does improve over time.
- Some people drain the grog through muslin after a couple of months, to clarify the liqueur and bottle. We don’t bother as one old soak tipped that, once the gin is drunk, you can pour medium sherry on the fruit and start all over again! The latter is devilish and drinkable within three months. We have a recipe for this in our wine and gin section.
- Keep your fruit gin away from the light as this will maintain the colour. Unless it is in a dark green or brown bottle. Wrapping it in brown parcel paper will keep out the light.
- Make notes on a label of your fruit gin/vodka /sugar ratio and stick it onto the bottle(s) so that you have a record, if you make a particularly good batch. We note our responses as the grog matures. Yucky after sixth months can be to die for in a year (you will probably not remember without notes). Notes seem boring when you are making the grog but they are so worthwhile when you start again the next year. It won’t be long before you will get a feel of what works well for your taste (and the notes will come into their own).
- Adding almond essence to sloe gin lifts it from good to great. I haven’t tried this with the damson gin but return in a years’ time for our review.
- Don’t kill the liqueur with too much sugar at the start. Use the amount above to start your sloe or damson gin and then every couple of months take a tiny sip. At this time add more sugar if it is too sharp for your taste.
- Gin v Vodka? Vodka can be used as the spirit for these recipes. Although I’m a vodka drinker, we tend to stick to a gin base for our fruit liqueurs.
- A good damson gin can be made from ordinary damsons available in the shops. As they are bigger you would need to put them into a larger Le Parfait jar (I’d use a 2 litre size).
- People have been picking sloes from September 1st around here. Some people say that you shouldn’t pick sloes until after the first frost. This can be circumvented by putting your sloes in the freezer overnight. We don’t bother with either method and always have great results.
- This year we have made up a number of small (1lb honey jars) of sloe gin to give as Christmas presents.
| Wild Damson Gin and sloe gin Recipes |
Recipe Type: Liqueurs
Prep time: 15 mins
Total time: 15 mins
Ingredients
- Wild damson gin:
- 1lb/454gm of washed wild damsons
- 6 ozs/168gm of white granulated sugar
- 75cl bottle of medium quality gin
- Sterilised 1 litre (at least) Le Parfait jar or wide necked bottle with stopper/cork
- Sloe Gin:
- 1lb/454gm of washed sloes
- 4 ozs/112gm of white granulated sugar
- 75cl bottle of medium quality gin
- Sterilised 1 litre (at least) Le Parfait jar or wide necked bottle
- 1-2 drops of almond essence
Instructions
- Wild damson gin:
- Wash damsons well and discard any bad or bruised fruit. Prick fruit several times with a fork and place damsons in either a large
- Kilner/Le Parfait jar or a wide necked 1 litre bottle.
- Using a funnel, add the sugar and top up with gin to the rim.
- 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). If you are planning to drink this after 3 months, have a nip afetr a month, and top up with sugar to taste.
- Some people strain the grog (through muslin/jelly bag) after 3 months and bottle it, leaving it mature for six months. We strain and bottle after a year. Don’t leave the straining process any longer than a year; leaving the fruit in too long can spoil the liqueur, as we found to our cost one year.
- Sloe gin:
- 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 strain and bottle after a year.
Leave a reply
Try 1 lb (pound) sloes, 1/2 lb honey, I bottle Whisky.
Not a top price Malt–Asda, Tesco, Aldi.
Put all in kilner jar and shake it for a few weeks.
Leave to settle-don’t fret over any haze/residue.
Strain through funnel lined with muslin.
Type BRUADAR into search engine
Wish I had an aunt like that! Is that an Eastern European concoction? A friend of ours who travels that part of the world sometimes brings back miniatures of weird liqueurs, but most of them taste like cough mixture…
Johnny H-T
My Aunt bought me a bottle of BRUADAR,
a liqueur of sloes, honey and Whisky
Thanks, Fiona. I’ll try that.
WRT the spiders mentioned earlier, a lady I spoke to this morning said (quite seriously) that she was going to collect conkers to spread around the place to ward them off. I quite like spiders, so have no reason to try, but I suppose it might work. It shouldn’t be difficult to tell if chestnut trees are free from webs on a dewy morning… 🙂
Hi Simon
Spiders love living in our cottage but as yet haven’t discovered the sloe gin!
Luckily for them we haven’t developed any spider (or fly) recipes yet.
Hi Emma
That was a stroke of luck!
We found a teeny wild damson tree with just enough fruit for one bottle of damson gin.
Hello Marilyn
Thank you so much for leaving this recipe. Much appreciated.
Hello DoubleHelpings
Hope that it works out well for you.
Hi James P
Great tip. Thank you.
Bye the way bicarbonate of soda is great for getting rid of smells on lids. Just add a little water and wipe over. Leave for a few seconds and rinse off with cold water.
Those looking for large sealable glass jars but (like me) too mean to pay high prices for those with fancy tops might consider a trip to Lidl, where they sell pickled gherkins in 1.5 litre jars that are just right for the recipes at the top of this page.
These cost £1.19 and include a substantial helping of gherkins that you can transfer to something less exotic, like an ice-cream tub or some Tupperware. I do recommend cleaning the lid thoughly, though… 🙂
what a wonderful thread! Last year I picked elderberries and made cordial, but it spoiled after a month – guess the seal wasn’t good enough on the bottle. This year I’m going to have a go at elderberry gin, after finding trees laden with fruit around Bucks. The impression I’ve got it is some gin, some sugar and some fruit will do the trick, so here goes!
Hi Pete
We grow our own raspberries and make raspberry gin and vodka every year with
great results.
This is our recipe:
To each 1 lb raspberries add 12 oz granulated sugar and a 75 cl bottle of
either gin or vodka
Place all the ingredients in a demijohn or jar and seal securely. Leave in
a dark place for 3 months, shaking the jar every day for the first month,
then occasionally. Strain the liqueur through muslin then bottle.
We make it in a demijohn so you can make up quite large quantities at a
time.
It’s great with lemonade or tonic. Enjoy.
PS If you can get hold of a copy we always use “Good Housekeeping Complete
Book of Home Preserving” which has some great liqueur, booze, jam and
chutney recipes.
After suffering sloe-less for the last couple of years, my husband and I stumbled across a bush in our local nature reserve. We’re thrilled and in the process of making our batch today. Never heard of the almond essence before so we’re going to try that this year.
We’ve already made 3 x l.5l jars of damson gin, though sadly we had to buy the damsons.
Roll on Christmas!!
Emma and Andrew
Hello,
Just made my first batch of Sloe Gin. Thanks for the inspiration.
Anyone know a good recipe using spiders…? There seem to be a lot of brightly coloured ones this year. Only joking of course – everyone knows to use them as a kebab, with peanut satay.
😉