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 Adam, should have explained myself better, sorry. The perry, I assume, will have a fizz to it and my friend said plastic bottles expand to accomodate this. Saying that I did think champagne and the like come in glass bottles!?! Friend suggested glass bottles could cause a few explosive surprises!! I have lots of glass bottles and demi johns but no plastic so actually glass storage would be preferable.
Hi have just been rooting through cupboard for large glass jars for sloe vodka and found a litre I made in 1995 ! Result or what ! I presume it is safe to drink I had drained the sloes before I bottled it ! Hic !
I think the main culprit is a chemical called bisphenol-A which is one of these chemicals that many suspect of causing you to grow a second head but industry denies flat out.
Here’s a link I just googled:
http://website.lineone.net/~mwarhurst/bisphenol.html
However I am pretty sure bisphenol-A is not the same chemical that causes the plastic taste – that is something else again.
Frankly I don’t think you’re going to find cheap plastic BPA-free bottles, although I might be wrong. The baby bottles and hiking bottles that are BPA free are easy to find online but demi-johns? Don’t know.
Why did your friend recommend plastic?
Hello everyone,
I am part way through trying to brew Pear Perry (recipe from Andy in Budapest much appreciated thanks!) trouble is a friend who has done homemade wine suggested I bottled it into plastic bottles rather than glass. I read with interest the previous conversations about glass/plastic containers and am now a bit confused as to my best course of action! Can any one help please?
Hi DAI
I must try and get my hands on some of this grog!
Hi Jano
This happened to me the other day when I bought 2 litres of vodka and returned the next day to buy even more!
Morning all, I may have to move further afield as Im getting some pretty sorry looks from staff at our local lidl store. First gin, then vodka,whiskey, more gin, either that or wear a wig!!
Sloe Motion, the North Yorkshire family run Sloe Gin producing company, has won a national award for its Sloe Whisky.
Two gold stars were awarded at the Great Taste Awards 2009, on the back of Sloe Motion’s sister liqueur Sloe Gin in 2008, which also won a gold.
Thanks for the feedback on the plastic issue. My bacon has been saved by my neighbour who had a couple of glass demi johns in his shed he was about to sell at a car boot tomorrow. Washed, sanitised and now holding the precious nectar. The only cost to me a bottle when it’s done.
One question has anyone tried germinating the stones when they’ve finished with them?
pleased to have found this article today 3/10/09, kitchen full of damsons, sloes, gin, vodka etc. think I must be a member of SFTA but didn’t know it! Good to get tips from you all, my interest has been rekindled since I found some sloe sherry in the back of the cupboard probably 2/3 years old and lovely. I only have a small glass most days and it tastes lovely and smooth and fruity, and I find I sleep better afterwards. I’ve just finished a desert of cooked damsons, light greek yogurt and crumbled meringues, it was heavenly. Found my damsons at Dorchester Market, sold off cheaply to get rid of them. I also live on the lovely Island and Royal Manor of Portland like Christof, where we found plentiful sloes this year, but they were well off the beaten track
Hi…I’m not going to put your mind at rest, because it is just not a risk worth taking if there is any uncertainty at all. But plastic isn’t all the same. Some plastics leach badly, others have been purpose made to theoretically not leach at all. On modern bottles there should be a recycle symbol that actually tells you what the bottle is made from. And that theoretically then lets you know whether any particular bottle is safe for any reuse at all, let alone long term steepage use. As I understand it many bottles are deemed appropriate for single use only, even though it’s possible that that ends up including long term storage before it’s ever sold, which doesn’t make sense. I think it is probably a bit of a minefield.
One would have thought (hoped) that purpose made bottles to carry water (and lemonade) could be assumed to be of a type that is determined to be as certain as possible not to leach. But that isn’t necessarily the case and greater care should surely be taken when you are refilling with alcohol rather than water as well, which is a different kettle of fish, albeit I think heat most problematic.
If you really don’t want to rebottle (I would), and presuming you have lost the lemonade bottle labels by now, I would go and check in a shop the labels of new bottles of the same brand. The recycle symbol can then be looked up online to see what it means. I know there are quite a variety, but I don’t know what individual ones mean, or where to look (I will go to check myself now though), but I am pretty sure it will be easily found on the internet once you know what you should be looking for.
Good luck….Jo