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.
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Today I found some more sloe berries in Munich’s Ikea carpark. I tasted them and my “faced caved in”. Thy had yellow-green flesh. Some of the branches were losing leaves and the sloes were turing black like the ones i described as Berry 2. These bushes were quite sheltered by the horrible concrete carpark, so I’m pretty sure that the other berries I have are sloes past their best. I now have enough to make all sorts of gin.
…And for those with a wild side that needs taming, I can make Wild Gin.
I think I’m becoming a member of SFTA as described by Danny on 12th July 09.
A facetious remark, but you if you use all varieties of berry, just call it Wild Gin.
With regards to the plums Matt has collected they certainly don’t sound like sloes more like a sweet damson However if it is of any use to try and identify them have a look at the website link below. It’s always nice to know the fruit you’re using. You may have discovered an excellent new flavour and recipe www.naturalhub.com/grow_fruit_cultivars_plum.htm
Not sure which ones you’ve picked but sloe berries are sour and dry – on touch of the cut side on your tongue and your face caves in! Also they are probably more stone than flesh. They have nasty thorns which can bring a skin reaction if you get badly scratched. And I wouldn’t recommend putting them in your garden unless it is quite large and you don’t mind untidy.
I think I may have collected a mixture of berries from different bushes. I did notice this while collecting so I kept them seperate thinking I could have a range of quality in gin. Maybe I have found a collection of bushes from a past generation of connoisseurs.
Berry 1: The sweet ones which I have already ‘ginned’ still had some blue-ish colouring. These were the softest and the ones that I thought were sweet. They were oval shape and longer (just over 1/2 inch) than they were in diameter (1/2 inch). The gin has coloured already after just 3 hours. I did notice the skins bleeding purple as i pricked them.
Berry 2: The 1kg of black ones I have left are same size as above, but more sour (although not face cringingly sour). They taste a bit like plums, but look more like a very small black olive. The bush was prickly and had long individual spikes with fruit around them. So maybe I have wild damsons. I feel lucky if I do.
Berry 3: The 3rd berry had a blu-ish colour and was larger than those above. This berry was larger in diameter (3/4 inch) than it was long unlike those above. I didn’t have many of these so I didn’t taste them. The gin in this one hasn’t changed colour yet like Berry 1. I’m pretty sure that this one is the sloe berry. The bush still had leaves on, but but the bushes from berry 1&2 had lost there leaves.
Can anyone identify what berries I might have picked? I am currently living south of Munich, Germany, at the foot of the Austrian Alps. If this turns out good, I will save some seeds and grow my own bushes.
I actually missed the reference to having been pricked to death above. And it is blackthorn that is prickly like that. My (what I think are)damsons have a very few very long individual spikes (to be wary of), but they are not really what can be desribed as thorny. So yours probably are indeed just very, very ripe sloes, as presumably don’t often survive to gather that additional sugar.
Nice article that. I hadn’t seen it.
But sloes are supposed to be picked after the first frost for best effect. Maybe that does affect the bloom? But it could equally be the picking process and transportation that has wiped it off in the photo (or they have even been wiped for the benefit of the photo). But I have recently been investigating the difference between what I have, and sloes, and your saying that they are now very sweet doesn’t sound like sloes to me. Are what you have really as “round” as in that Telegraph picture? I think I have wild damsons, which are very similar, but just a bit less round (more a fat oval) and which hang more loosely from the branch (sloes have very short stems), but which are much sweeter. Although they are very pleasantly edible raw, I still wouldn’t call them very sweet, though, as you have. But there is also a related similar called a black bullace. I have no idea how sweet that is in comparison, but I gether that they are more round than the wild damson. It could be that you have those as well. And from what I gather both damson and bullace are actually more rare than the sloes, and even better. I know the gin I made from my wild damsons was totally scrumptious!
Fn, I am pretty sure that they are sloes. They were a nice dusty blue colour in the summer when I saw them, and I got prickled to death picking them. I’m currently in Germany, so maybe the hard frost has turned them black. The sloes in the picture on this Times article are also look black, so I am hopeful that my sloes will be ok. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article5061661.ece
I’ve now finished making 1 litre of gin with the blueish/black slows. I still have 1kg of black sloes (close to shrivelling point), so I shall buy some more gin tomorrow.
I tasted these black sloes and they are very sweet, so I am hoping that means they are just really ripe. Quite a few of them squashed during picking. I’m expecting that I won’t need to add extra sugar in 2 months time. Maybe this is how sloe gin is supposed to be made, but everyone else picks early for fear of missing out on the crop, and wanting to allow 3 months before Christmas.
Excellent website! I was reading it all evening yesterday and now I am going to make sloe gin. The sloes I have found have turned from their dusty blue colour to non-dusty black. Does this mean that they are ready, or that they have passed their best? Do you think these will still be ok to use? I will make it anyway and see, but I just wondered if anyone could dash my hopes now, rather than after 3 months of waiting.
Hi Matt
Are you sure that they are sloes? Sloes always have a bloom.
hi Joy , Ive not made it myself but here is a recipe for cherry brandy using Morrelo cherries so I guess you could use more sugar !
1 lb of Morello cherries
1/2 lb caster sugar
12 almonds
Top up with brandy.
My friend has made it and said it was delicious !