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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R – I am no expert, but I believe the fruit will need the presence of air to properly go mouldy and mushy. Assuming that you put the fruit in the alcohol right after you pricked it with a fork, I
expect the localised bruising would be fine and the fruit will now be preserved in the alcohol and not ruin your batch.
Really enjoying the site, and very much appreciate you taking the time to write up your experiences!
I’m a non-driving city-dweller with a yard only, but am lucky enough to live near two large parks and a fabulously overgrown 19th century cemetry, all of which provide some great foraging opportunities. The kids and I are very keen bramblers, but we’ve also picked plums, haws, rowan and elder before as well.
Have been getting well into my liqueurs this summer after years of pies and jam, gin-based ones especially. So far, I have at least one bottle each of; raspberry, blackberry, elderberry, plum, rosehip and a mixed hedgerow variety in which I bunged in a little of everything we’ve harvested so far, including a tiny handful of rowan berries and a few sprigs of wild-growing lavender, just to be on the daring side! Great tips about removing the fruit on other pages, especially in relation to blackberry gin, so thanks for that!
I asked a few people what proportions of ingredients to use, but everyone said something slightly different, so I took the bull by the horns and started most of my batches off by using a simple recipe that’s easy to remember, one that was derived from a combination of things my compadres advised and coming up with an admittedly broad average. I can always tweak it at a later date depending on the results, is my thinking; I’ve already started a liqueur record with dates, amounts etc. with this in mind.
For every mililitre of spirit, I measured out half that in grams of fruit, and a quarter of sugar e.g. 500ml spirit, 250g fruit, 125g sugar, the exceptions being elderberry, to which I recently added a little extra sugar after stumbling upon this article, and also the plums, which ended up with slightly less as they were already very sweet.
I’m also planning a few other varieties using different spirits, specifically two schnapps and a fruit brandy. Will let you know how I get on with each if you’d be interested.
Piece de resistance – I’ve found what I think may be my first ever blackthorn bush last week, though I am still waiting for verification on that. All the signs are there however, so fingers crossed – my friend’s homemade sloe gin is one of the best things I’ve every tasted, so I’ll be over the moon if this is a chance to brew some of my own after years of dreaming. There were only two bushes with a very modest amount of fruit, but if my provisional identification is correct and I can get more than one large batch, I will try the recipe above as well and compare the two. Personally I love the sickly sweet stuff, but I also enjoy something fresher a cleaner too – it’s all good! Will be interesting to figure out what my preferred proportions are as each of my bottles matures.
I do have a question about one variety I haven’t mentioned yet – the yellow bullace gin. As with the plums, I washed and pricked the fruits, and discarded any that had signs of spoiling. However within a day, some of them had already started to turn brown. Like the possiblymaybe sloes, yellow bullaces are relatively new to me as a forager, so I’m not sure this is a normal reaction or something to be worried about – it all seems to have started off in/around the holes I created with the fork, and now four days on, most of them show signs of spoiling.
Or are they? I have no idea. The liquid is looking a very lovely golden colour already, but I’m not sure whether or not to keep the whole thing, discard it all together, or maybe remove the bullaces and pop them in another jar with some fresh ones picked today. I can’t find many web sources referring to yellow bullace gin, and none that mention this sort of bruising. I know it’s a long shot, but any help or advice would be brilliant!
Hello R
I agree with Matt, I wouldn’t worry too much about the brown bits.
Thanks Helen and Adam!
Helen, I remember my mum used to make something like that when I was little. I might give it a go with any leftovers from the vodka 🙂
Adam, I was thinking they needed picking soon as most of them are looking really juicy, especially higher up the trees – the only problem is that I am 5 feet tall and have no ladder :s
re: when to pick the elderberries – the berries on the tree in our garden are already falling off and end up on our shoes and get tramped through the house when you forget to take your shoes off, making it look like someone bled all over the place.
So I’d say, pick them now. I’d pick mine but have to acquire a ladder from somewhere first.
Hi Becky,
I have no experience of elderberry hooch, but each year I make a syrup to deal with colds and flu. Elderberries contain viburnic acid which helps to flush out the toxins. I dilute it as if making orange squash, and add hot water.It works, AND tasts delicious.Take at first onset of symptoms though.
Wash & de-stalk berries. Put 1Kg in pan with 1 cup water. Simmer until they have given up their juice. Crush and strain through a seive.Put back in pan and add 5 cloves and 1″ grated ginger and 225g sugar.Simmer 1 hour.Store in bottles.
Sometimes I repeat the first simmering to extract anything that may be left behind!
Hi Helen
Thanks for this recipe. I’m definitely going to try this one!
Hi there
Apologies if this has already been answered above – I read most of the posts but there are a lot to get through!
We have about 5 elderberry trees and every year I think “oh I must do something with those” and never do, so am hoping to make vodka or gin with them this year. It’s my first attempt at anything like that though! So do I just follow the basic sloe/damson recipe? When should I pick the elderberries? Should I freeze them first? Does vodka or gin work best? Sorry for all the questions!
Any help much appreciated!
Becky
Lakeland sell really nice Sloe Gin bottles, 1/5 ltr size, ideal for Christmas presents!
Even better value, though I am not sure I would re-use the bottles for Christmas presents!
Sainsbury’s sell their own brand, London Dry Gin for £15.99 for 1.5 litres
In case anyone is planning their sloe gin making activities this year, it may be of interest to know Morrisons are doing 1 litre bottles of Gordon’s gin for £13. Having said that, I have traditionally used their own brand which is in nice plain 70cl bottles for circa £9. The advantage is that these bottles are ideal to display the finished product, particularly when used as Christmas gifts. Hic. Happy sampling.