Sloe gin is a drink which has become synonymous with the countryside and cold weather; perhaps because traditionally the purple fruits of blackthorn weren’t picked until the depths of winter, once they had seen a frost and the skins had split slightly. It may also be a result of the warming nature of the drink when served neat, it’s not the same as whiskey but has a broader appeal providing it isn’t overladen with sugar.
Over the years I have experimented with the ratios of sugar to sloes to gin and my method now is to make it a little dry to start with and add more sugar to taste at the end of the process. It’s possibly not the most helpful when starting out so I have quantified things in the recipe below; but the nature of sloes and tendency for the sugar and juice content to vary with the weather each year means that flexibility is your friend here!
Gin – through experimentation we have landed on using a middling quality of gin, around the Gordon’s or Beefeater mark. Anything expensive and botanical will be overwhelmed by the fruits. You can also use a different clear alcohol if you don’t like gin, vodka and whiskey are both fantastic (rum isn’t so great)
Sugar – Any granulated sugar will work with this recipe, I have tried with caster sugar as it dissolves quicker but it seems to taint the flavour somehow.
The fruit – Sloes need to be ripe when picked, the skin will be a dark purple to black colour and slightly soft when squeezed between thumb and finger. Ideally you have picked, washed, removed stray leaves and stems from the fruit and then frozen for at least a couple of days before use. Before you start this recipe – remove the sloes from the freezer and allow to defrost a little, scruff up the skins by squashing the fruits inside the bag or transferring into the jar and shaking up. The aim here is just to expose some of the flesh of the fruits.
Flavourings – You can add flavourings to any alcohol infusion
Transfer the fruits into your jar, add sugar (if you have more or less fruit then adjust the amount of sugar accordingly) and pour over the gin and any flavourings then close the jar up and give it a couple of gentle inversions to mix everything together.
For the first week or so it is helpful to leave the jar somewhere obvious, to remind yourself to turn it each day until the sugar has dissolved.
Once the sugar has dissolved, move the jar to a cool, dark place and give it a turn every week or so. Continue this process for at least 3 months, although longer is better.
When you are ready to bottle your gin, make sure that you have both time and an undisturbed space in which to do it. The first filtration is relatively quick, use either a jelly straining bag or sieve lined with a tightly woven cloth to remove the fruits and larger sediments. You can then move on to using a coffee filter (the pour over paper type) to remove the finer sediments, this isn’t strictly necessary – but I would pass it through a cloth/sieve combination for a second time if I wasn’t using coffee filters.
Next, taste your sloe gin and adjust the sweetness by adding more sugar or sugar syrup. If it is already over sweet for your tastes you can balance this out by adding more gin, however this will also dilute the fruit flavour.
If you would like to learn about other autumnal fruits, how to find them and what to do with them, we have foraging courses in North Wales every year in the autumn.
Note:
The gin-soaked sloes can be used to make sloe ‘port’, de-stoned and coated in chocolate, added into crab apple jellies, or mixed into a dry scrumpy to make a drink called ‘slider’.
