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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SEVERE HEALTH WARNING
Forager’s Disease
This is a life consuming infection that seems to be spreading across the country at an alarming rate. It affects those fond of the outside life, particularly walking off the beaten track.
Symptons:- Affected persons show signs of great excitement and intolerance in late summer/autumn. It is usually accompanied by a burning passion to be out of doors amongst country hedges and hidden areas not usually visited by the more sane and healthy of their species.
Families will also notice an almost fanatical attraction to certain supermarket sections, most noticeably those where gin or vodka spirits or sugar is on special offer. Usually over excited by the sight of large kilner jars or wide necked screw-top glass bottles.
The disease is often confused with self-mutilation syndrome due to the intense cuts and scratches to be found on the sufferer’s hands and arms. In advanced stages this can also be seen on the patient’s legs.
Treatment:-There is no known cure for this disease, only a treatment that placates the patient. Provide the sufferer with stout waterproof walking shoes; lined trousers and jacket (preferably thornproof); a long walking stick (must have hooked end); a good supply of strong plastic carrier bags; lidded plastic food containers (approx 3 litre size) and the month of September off work and free from all commitments. At higher altitudes or more northern latitudes the treatment may need to start 10 – 14 days later.
Hey Becky! Yeah, fair enough on the elder. A grape-sized berry would have been some kind of mutant bound for the Guiness Book Of Records…
And yes, I’ve made pies with elderberry several times in previous harvests. The majority were added as a twist on or garnish for other types of pie, but I have knocked up a few of mostly/all elder in my time as well. You do need more sugar than you would most other fruits depending on your personal tastes, but they soften up lovely in a pan on a low heat and give off a gorgeous colour. I made a blackberry and elderberry pie recently using dark muscovado instead of regular caster and it worked very well. I also threw in a handful to a (foraged) apple crumble last week, mainly to jazz up the texture a little, and that was good too.
Re. aforementioned possible damson find, I am now convinced these were not damsons as I have what appears to be a positive ID on a tree on the hedge border of a local school. The fruits are quite small like bullaces but generally more oval-shaped, with plum bums, bright yellow flesh, and skin like that of a sloe i.e. deep blue-black and “blooming”. In fact, I completely understand now how many people end up mistaking the two as the leaves and formation are so similar, and the smaller damsons looked almost exactly like the larger sloes I picked the other week.
Suffice it to say, I was delighted, and after getting permission from the school to go picking, I gathered enough to make two pots of lovely jam, one of which I sent back to the headteacher as a thank you, and a litre of gin made with slightly less fruit than the recipe given above as it was all I had left (approx. 350g in total.) I think that takes my forager’s liqueur tally up to about twenty now, including two brandies and a whiskey – not bad for my first vintage! 2011 is going to be a very interesting year indeed…hic….
From your initial description Mags, they sounded like Mirabelles, to which I referred on 16th. However, you subsequently say they are the size of cherries which slightly confused me.
If you google Mirabelles it brings up one site with pictures and descriptions. That may help.
forgot to say, the tiny fruits are about the size of cherries, does this help identify them?
Hi all
went blackberry picking a couple of weeks ago (very poor show sadly) but stumbled across what i thought were sloes. became very excited as have always wanted to try making sloe gin. i’m now totally hooked on your website and have 3 bottles of damson gin, 2 raspberry gin and 1 blackberry vodka on the go. just still a bit worried that i havent correctly id’d the sloes! must get the books about foraging that others have referred to.
meanwhile i have found an almond tree (in someones front garden tho’) and stacks of apple trees and plum/damsons at my local sportscentre and hazelnut trees on the cycle path that i’ve been using for 8 years and just not noticed!
Oon my latest blackberry forage to the sportscentre (much better location) also found the tiniest yellow/peach coloured little fruits that were really ripe as just fell off the tree but were quite sharp in taste- had a stone shaped like a plum stone and i’m still alive a week later! any ideas what they are? think they’ll make good jam, going back tomorrow more suitably dressed to tackle them.
Louise – I am also new to sloe gin making but seeing as you now have a comparison you can make, I’d see your first batch as an experiment. Let it mature for a couple more months alongside the stuff you’ve just made. Then taste them both.
Presumably it’s all in the taste and if the first batch has gone a lovely purple colour and tastes good then it’s a success.
We harvested about 4 lbs of elderberries from the tree in our garden. Is that enough to make juice with, and can anyone point me to the recipe for making it into juice? As I understand it, you don’t just squeeze elderberries to get the juice out.
Went foraging with my wife and sister yesterday, we collected 3 lb 14 oz of rosehips and 13 lb 9 oz sloes! A satisfying afternoons work!
We made our first ever batch of sloe gin 4 weeks ago. The sloes we picked were small and hard but were purple in colour. We left the sloes in the window for a week to ripen them.
Yesterday we got given about a pounds worth of slows which look much bigger,plumper and juicer than the onces we picked. We are now concerned that our first batch won’t be any good, we have made 2 litres worth and are going to give them away as Christmas present.
Has anyone made sloe gin with small sloes that were picked far too early and ripened at home? Should we scrap the first lot and make another batch?
Thanks for any help.
I know the ones you mean and have a good supply in my garden. I believe them to be Mirabelles.
The description of Mirabelle is “Mirabelle plum is closely allied to the damson and bullace. The fruits are small, oval shaped, with a smooth-textured flesh, and especially by its dark yellow colour which becomes flecked in appearance. They are sweet and full of flavour and are therefore very much liked for these characteristics.”
Pictures of them can be seen on this site
The plants are widely grown in the Lorraine region of France and used to make their regional dish of Mirabelle Tart. We use them in jams as they seem to have a good pectin content. Having said that I can see no reason why they should not produce a good gin or vodka.
I hope this helps.