First dabble into Sloe Gin

Winter is coming !
What tipple do you most associate with the cold weather, roaring pub fires and the snow. If you are like me you will immediately think of Sloe Gin.
In the village where I grew up the local pub hosted an annual Sloe Gin competition, where the locals would battle out for the tastiest tipple of the year. Working behind the bar was always a benefit as I managed to sneak many samples throughout the night...this began my taste for Sloe Gin.

Now you can pick up Sloe Gin anywhere nowadays, with Gordons offering their own brand, as well as specialist companies such as SloeMotion. This for me just is not the same, it has to be home made!
So this year I decided to finally (after years of saying 'this year I am going to...) make my own.


The only problem I found that I know nowhere local where I can find hawthorne bushes, so this blog may seem controversial to the purists. I went online and (wait for it) purchased a bag of dehydrated sloe's. They came from amazon at around £7.50 posted, which for someone with no time to go exploring the woods was quite a bargain. The only problem with purchasing these sloe's is that on starting the gin the rich red colour that you usually see is not as rich as you would expect, at this stage a purply grey... I am sure in time it will get better!



So the recipes:
I decided to make two different tipples, a conventional Sloe Gin & a Christmas version.
You need (makes two gin's):
500g Sloe Berries
500g Caster Sugar
1litre Gin (cheaper the better...apparently)
2x flip top jars (found for less than £2 each in IKEA)
2x months of patience



Simply, take 250g of sloes (if you buy dehydrated make sure you soak and wash them thoroughly, then leave to soak in warm water overnight...just to rehydrate them). Add the sloes to the jar, followed by 250g of caster sugar and half a litre of gin. It is as simple as that !

For my Christmassy Gin I used the above recipe and added a cinnamon stick and a couple of whole star anise....little bit on an experiment.
All in all, for all the ingredients (inc the Xmas spices) it cost just under £20.

Following this leave the jars out of direct sunlight and turn every couple of days. After approximately 2 months strain out the gin, rebottle and enjoy...maybe with a mince pie!
Once we completed the Sloe Gin, we still had a lot of sloe's left...so out came our untouched bottle of Smirnoff (for guests as we do not usually have vodka!) and a bottle of Sloe Vodka was added (same recipe just different spirit)

Like I said earlier, the inclusion of the dried sloes is a bit of an experiment...it may or may not work, so come back in two months and lets see what it is like!

-Sam