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
Hello Paul
Isn’t it great when you find a good source that no one has spotted!
It would be great to hear how you compare frosted sloe gin with frozen sloe gin.
Hi Paul S
Sloe brandy sounds terrific. I made apricot brandy once and the results were so abysmal that I’ve not used brandy with fruit since then. Perhaps I’ll give sloe brandy a go.
Thanks for the tip about Tristan Welsh’s sloe recipes.
Hi Lee
How wise to wait till Christmas Eve. We opened a bottle of redcurrant and raspberry gin to taste it and dropped the bottle aaaargh!
Hi Janice
24 year old sloe gin will take some beating. I’d love to hear how it tastes.
Hello Joy
Great that you are enjoying the site.
Yes you could use cherries to make brandy. I’d cut down the sugar by at least half. You can always add more if necessary.
Great site,
Only ment a quick look as I am about to embark on my first attempt at sloe gin,but found myself reading the entire site 3 years!!!! and counting
I have several wild cherry trees in my garden, could I use a similar method to produce cherry brandy rather than letting the blackbirds enjoy the lot.
I’ve been keeping an eye on a bumper crop of sloes, and now that the leaves have fallen they look as ripe as they’re going to get. Last time I made sloe gin was october 1985 and the bottles are still in the cupboard. I think it might be mature now!
hi ,
made some wild damson gin two months ago using them from the woods were i live, cant wait till xmas eve when i have the first tipple,great recipe and easy,
i know the longer you wait the better it tastes but i think xmas eve will be the longest i can wait til.
Further to my post of 8 October, I made sloe brandy using my sloe gin recipe with brandy in place of gin. It proved a bit too sweet so I have added a third more sloes and brandy. Three weeks on the result looks and tastes very promising indeed – even wore warming than sloe gin.
I make my sloe gin in demijohns used for brewing. Each will hold about 3½ bottles of gin with the sloes and sugar. By making in bulk the finished product can be decanted into bottles leaving the sediment behind.
Today’s Daily Telegraph (24 October)contains an article on the celebrity chef Tristan Welch’s use of sloes. There are recipes for sloe gin, venison burgers with sloe gin and onion relish and sloe gin jelly with home made clotted cream. Well worth a look and a taste.
With warmer autumns and winters, the prospect of there being any sloes left on the bushes after frost is increasingly remote. Realistically it is far more reliable is to pick in late September once ripe and freeze them. You can then use at your leisure.
Most of the sloes in my part of Lincolnshire have now wizened up and dropped due to the dry weather. There are a few in some field edges where the farmers have irrigated the crop but not many and they’re quite small. It was the same with the blackberries.The best ones were one river and drainage dike banks but a lot have now been ripped up by dredging operations.The blackberries will probably be back next year but the blackthorn have had it. The sloes I got were taken from some trees that had been ripped out on a river bank I was fishing. I froze some and tried using some without. If I can find enough once we’ve had a proper frost (I’ve got my eye on a few on an isolated riverbank ;->) I’ll have comparisons for all the methods people champion.
Hi Sara
Why not make marron glace?
Hi Adam
I love roasted chestnuts.
Hello Sylvia
I use Kilner and Le Parfait jars. Both are suitable for the same things. But Le Parfait jars come in a much wider range of sizes.
You need to sterilise the jar but let it get cold before adding the damsons, sugar and gin. Yes you boil the rubber ring and you need to fill the jar to the neck. If the damsons are frozen they don’t need pricking.
I’d love to hear how you get on.
Hi Juno
I agree with you – it’s best to leave the sloes until after the first frosts.
Hi Sandy
Thanks for the tip.
Around Bishops waltham there are still some about round most fields but they are on the higher branches as the lower ones have been picked !
I see here people are saying its getting a bit late in the year now to pick sloe berries, but seeing as its not frosty yet no one should have picked any sloes yet.
The people that pick them far too early in august and september really do annoy me by ruining the sloe picking at the correct time for everyone else.
Does anyone else know of any sites near Southampton that have sloes left for people actually being patient and waiting for first frost?
Hi, thanks for all the interesting articles and recipes. I successfully made damson jam with your recipe last year and am now going to try damson gin. I have bought Le Parfait jars with the clip lid.
Are they as versatile as the Kilner screw tops, or are each suited for a different purpose? (I’m a beginner you see).
Do I sterilise them in the oven, then wait for them to cool before filling?
Do I boil the rubber ring?
Does the jar have to be completely filled to the rim?
If the damsons are frozen does that mean they don’t need piercing with a cocktail stick?
Many thanks. I shall continue to read, learn, do and enjoy.