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
Hi Joanne
Apricot kernels were a big thing during the Roman Empire for killing off irritating enemies but you need an awful lot of them. Sloe stones are basically plum stones and as far as I know are safe – I have drunk twenty year old sloe gin – with stones in and survived.
It might be an idea to research this further for total peace of mind.
Hi Sandy
I’d love to try sloe wine and oak leaf wine sounds tempting too.
We have six year old fruit wine slowly maturing in the barn. Blackberry is particularly good.
Hello Jano
I sometimes do this and it works fine.
I have never made Bruador so can’t help on that front.
Hi everyone, all my booze is stewing beautifully and I can’t wait to try it! can you tell me is it possible to add more gin etc to demijohn a month after I put it in. Will it effect the taste? Do I need to add more fruit too? Thanks for any tips.
Also i’d like to try Bruadar but I don’t like wiskey, can you taste it once it’s made?
A place called Bishops Waltham in between Southampton and Winchester we have the moors and many public footpaths – a lovely area !
I concur with the brilliant site bit!
But where in Hampshire are you talking about? It might be near me. And although I have my own supply of wild damsons (I think), I would really like to see the forms of sloes and similar to compare with mine. I have been doing a bit of peering at hedgerows while driving by, but that is somewhat limited by the necessity to stay on the road safely (lol). And in that limited investigation I have seen lots of wild plums but not sloes. Being steered in a general direction would be much appreciated.
WHat a brilliant site I live in Hampshire and have just picked a huge batch of sloes there are millions here ! I used to make wine out of loads of things but I ran out of places to put the demijohns -sometiimes I had up to 50 gallons on the go so got rid of all the gear so I would not be tempted and stick to sloe gin and vodka now ! By the way sloe wine is lovely and oak leaf wine !
I made some damson gin years and years ago, and although some of it was consumed (it was fabulous), there was a lot and some is still left at the back of a shelf in my larder (out of sight, out of mind). It doesn’t say much for the state of my larder where things can hide for long, but it’s a tiny room really and a repository for everything. There’s all sorts hiding in there. But discovering this site made me go to dig the remembered bottles out. They don’t look too terribly healthy though. It’s strong alcohol, so it shouldn’t have gone off as such, even if it is sludgy from the fruit that is still in there. It can be filtered, if it still tastes good, to be made to look better, that isn’t my concern. But I am a bit worried that the stones have in there all this time. I am remembering the French liqueur that was banned long ago (I can’t recall the name), based on apricots(?), that was giving people arsenic poisoning. Does anyone know any proper guidelines in this regard.
I am talking of this old damson gin being upwards of 15 years old. Is it actually safe to drink, or not?
Hi Adam
Hope that you like the sloe gin when the time comes.
Great that you are enjoying the site.
Just followed your recipe for sloe gin. It seems I stumbled on a pot of gold with this website. It’s great to see something that’s got a bit of real life imprinted around the edges rather than just a random page on the net somewhere. Thanks!
thx marilyn for the recipe for raspberry gin, can’t wait to try it, slurppppppppp hic, lol
Thank you Dai – that sounds worth a try! It’s Scottish, I see…