Recipe for Bullace Vodka
Comments(37)
A friend from Kent gave us a small bag of bullaces (a small type of plum that grows wild in English hedgerows) last October. We bunged them into a small Le Parfait jar, topping it up with sugar and vodka. We found the forgotten jar last weekend, hidden behind some pickled plums. It was excellent. Unfortunately, as you can see from the photo, it didn’t last very long.
As with all fruit liqueurs, you can use gin or vodka as the base. We have a preference for gin in fruit liqueurs but this bullace vodka was superb. We will certainly make it again if we can find some bullaces in the hedgerows around the village. Generally they are not ripe until late September or early October. There’s an old boy in our village who makes bullace brandy from an ancient secret recipe. I thought I might try to make some this year, using the proportions below. I made plum brandy a few years ago, but it took two years to mature before it was drinkable. It was still absolutely vile after one year. Three years on it was bliss.
Ingredients:
1lb/454gm of washed bullaces
6 ozs/168gm of white granulated sugar
1 75cl bottle of medium quality vodka
Sterilised 1ltr(at least) Le Parfait jar or wide necked bottle.
Method:
- Wash bullaces well and discard any bruised fruit. Prick them several times with a fork and place the fruit in either a large Kilner/Le Parfait jar or a wide necked 1litre bottle.
- Using a funnel, add the sugar and top up with vodka to the rim.
- Shake every day until the sugar is dissolved.
- 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 potion (through muslin/jelly bag) after 3 months and bottle it, leaving it mature for a further six months. We strain and bottle after a year. Don’t leave the straining process any longer than one year as the liqueur can be spoilt by leaving the fruit in too long.
Tips and tricks:
- The fruit will swell a little in the alcohol, so don’t fill your bottle/jar more than half full with fruit before you add the sugar and alcohol.
- 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 vodka is drunk, you can pour medium sherry on the fruit and start all over again! The latter is devilish and drinkable within three months.
- Keep your fruit vodka away from the light as this will maintain the colour. Unless it is in a dark green or brown bottle.
- Every couple of months take a tiny sip. At this time add more sugar if it is too sharp for your taste.
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Thanks for the tips on bullace vodka, I usually make sloe gin and have just picked about 4 kilos, could not decide if they were sloes or not, but they did not all fit in the glass neck of wine and gin bottles so I realised they were not sloes. Have now started 4 bottles of bullace gin. Have pureed most of the fruit. Trouble is it gets expensive buying all the gin. All the wild plum chutney instead of bought mango chutney will not save enough to justify 10 bottles of gin!!! regards, Zena
Hi Zeena,
Thanks for dropping by. Yes the gin is expensive and can cause stares in the supermarket queue if you are buying several bottles at once! It’s delicious though, and definitely worth making.
Very excited to have got mine on the go now after you kindly identified that what I had foraged were bullaces. Thanks v much n can’t wait til it’s ready!
Hi Plumsource,
Thanks for reporting back. Bullace vodka is a great liqueur.
bullace make a very good jam.
we made it this year and last.
it takes patience to remove the stones – you could probably remove them during cooking.
thanks for the bullace vodka – I will be trying it this year.
Hi Emma,
Great to hear that bullaces make great jam. Our local bullaces (the green, wild greengage ones) are over now but I will remember this for next year. Thank you.
Thanks for this- My mum has a bullace tree in her garden and it is loaded this year!
Now we know what to do with them!
Hi Jen,
Happy brewing/jam making. They might make a good chutney too.
Hi all who view
I have been making sloe gin for years now and its great as Xmas presents, I had a go at making some Blackberry gin last year, it realy does give a full colour and tastes out of this world, perhaps a bit too good to give away. I found some bullace at the entrance to my mums farm a week or two back, I could not resist and hand the footwell of the car full in no time at all, so much easier than sloe berries, and worth all the time and expense for a real treat. Happy hunting all.
Hi Colin,
We find it hard to give away our raspberry gin! Glad that you found a good bullace harvest. Have you tried bullace brandy?
What do I do with a surfit of Aylesbury Prunes?!
You could try using them for fruit vodka. Apart from that I am sorry I don’t have a clue
I’ve had a sneaky slurp of my bullace vodka and it’s coming along nicely enough to give a bottle away to my brother who’s due on a delayed xmas visit on sunday! I will let the rest mature as long as I can wait. It tastes to me like cherries – yum! Thanks so much again for the tips.
Hi Plumsource
We cracked open our bullace gin last night when Danny’s brother came to stay. It was great, almost like roughish an Eau de Vie. I’ll definitely be making it again next year!
Made bullace vodka (found I have my own bullace tree which is now kept a secret)and after 6 months it is fantastic. Also did bullace martini(dry), and after a taste test with all my neighbours it was decided that I had to do a lot more next year.
Pop quiz…….why do the bullace in vodka float and the bullace in martini sink ???
I know this is late, but have a few ballace trees that are covered with fruit so if anyone live near Norwich they come the 5 or 6 miles and have as many as they can carry free
recipe says not to used ‘bruised fruit’ – I was hoping to use mirabelles I have previously frozen.
What do people think?
PS thank you for all these amazing tips and recipes (and I wish I lived near Norwich)
Hello Mandarama
Bruised fruit means Fruit with bad bits not frozen plums
Mirabelles sound great. All you need to know is go easy on the sugar (you can add more later on but you can’t take it away).
Great that you are enjoying the site.
Many thanks
I have already made sloe gin and am admiring its ‘cerise’ hue. Will defrost a batch of mirabelles this afternnon and make the plum brandy tomorrow.
Also intending to pick hedgerow grapes from a well hidden vine found last year, when I picked several carrier bags of ‘almost over’ fruit. I’ve been keeping an eye on them, this time round, and hope to make wine. My father was an avid country wine maker and I now have all his old (mainly simple)recipes etc
Happy to share them, once I’ve checked their outcomes
Hello Mandarama
How exciting – hedgerow grapes!
I’d love to hear how the wine recipes turn out.
Get that brandy recipe off the old geeza! That sounds wonderful
Have been reading all your liqueur recipes (as well as the recipe for celery soup which is how I found your site.) Have printed them all off and hope to be producing our own tipples in the coming year. My daughter and I have taken on an allotment this year and will be growing our own fruit as well as veg, once we got the plot in shape. Will let you know how our efforts turn out. Really like your site.
Hi Herb Robert
Sorry I missed your comment. No the old geazer is not going to share
Hi Margaret
Best of luck with your allotment! I’d love to hear how you are getting on.
Good luck with the tipples too. Always a good investment.
Having another hunt round the site and found this page. I’ve bottled several bullace liqueurs recently – a yellow bullace gin, a purple bullace gin, a green/red blushing bullace brandy, and a yellow/red dappled bullace whiskey. (These are descriptions rather than official names obviously.) We have so many bullace trees in the area, and this year’s crops were all amazing. I think I must have picked nearly ten or eleven pounds in total, and this was well after the peak of the harvest from what my friend was telling me. Looking forward to see how they all turn out.
JUST GREAT READING ABOUT ALL THE DRINKS PEOPLE ARE MAKING WITH BULLACE, NOT BEING MUCH OF A DRINKER, WELL NOT AS MUCH AS I USE TO BE, I JUST MADE 25 JARS OF BULLACE JAM FROM THE TREES IN MY GARDEN, NOW THE OTHER 3 TREES ARE FULL ON WHAT LOOK LIKE GREEN TURNING RED BULLACE THE GREEN ONES ARE ARE RIPE BEFOR TURNING RED, SO GOD KNOW WHAT I CAN DO WITH THEM, ANY SUGGESTIONS ?
Hello everyone. Have been following your blog with interest as I love making sloe gin and am keen to find new ideas. This year, whilst holidaying in South Norfolk, we picked some bullace, or thats what I have been told it was, though I thought they looked like damsons. Have made a bottle of the stuff and want to make more but can not find anywhere near us that grows bullace. We live in Suffolk, near Ipswich area. Any clues?
HI JANIE, I HAVE PLENTY OF BULLACE TREES, YOU ARE MOST LIKELEY CORRECT IN THINKING THAT BULLACE AND WILD DAMSONS ARE THE SAME, HAVE JUST MADE LOTS OF JAM WITH MINE , BUT DO HAVE SOME RED/GREEN ONES STILL WITH FRUIT ON THEM, (FRUIT IS RED/GREEN NOT THE TREES HA HA )NEXT TIME YOU COME TO SOUTH NORFOLK AND IN THE RIGHT SEASON YOU CAN COLLECT AS MUCH FRUIT AT YOU LIKE
Hi Bunnsy, thanks for this. It seems that there are several types of bullace. Where abouts in S. Norfolk are you? Is it possible to make contact off this site? We were at Saxlingham when we collected the bullace. Is this anywhere near you?
HI AGAIN JANIE, MADE A BIT OF A MISTAKE A MINUTE AGO, SO START AGAIN AM NEAR LODDON WHICH IS FAIRLY CLOSE TO BECCLES,NOT SURE ABOUT USING THIS SITE TO CONTACT ME, NEVER TOO SURE ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE SEEING MY EMAIL ADDRESS, THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU,( SMILING.)WILL GIVE SOME THOUGHT AS TO WHAT IS POSSIBLE, STILL HAVE LOTS OF THE RED/GREEN BULLACE ON A FEW TREES, LET ME KNOW IF THERE IS SOME PLACE WHERE I CAN GET THEM TO YOU I DO HAVE A LADY FRIEND WHO LIVE IN BURY.ST.EDMUNDS SO MAYBE IT WOULD BE POSSIBLE TO MEET THERE , THERE IS A PUBLIC PARK CLOSE TO HER HOME THINK NAME IS NOWTON PARK, BUNNSY,
Has anyone ever made a cocktail using bullace vodka.I was thinking about a nice pre dinner drink perhaps?
Both leftover bullace and cherries go well in xmas
cake,and no bullace and damson are not the same,
any more than sloes and cherry-plums are the same as victoria plums.
I have several carrier bags of Victoria plums picked yesterday – any ideas?
Jam, jelly, wine and some in the freezer for cooking under slow roast belly of pork.
Hi Iian
Good idea about the Christmas cake! Yes bullace (the dark ones) are not the same as damsons – I put one in the picture so that if someone found some they would know that they were not damsons
Bunnsy – how do we get in touch with you?
Thanks for this, we have made some green bullace gin after finding your helpful recipe, but we still have enough left to try this vodka. Do they need as much sugar as this as they are green bullaces?
Also, with the green bullace gin, do they need to be pricked as much as damsons do?
Great site by the way!
August/September: One (clean) gallon bucket full of ripe Kent bullace; put them into a medium carboy – about 18 inches across; add about half a kg white sugar; then four 70cl bottles of cheapest supermarket vodka.
Swirl it around every week until the sugar disappears. I don’t bother to wash the fruit, nor do I prick them. That’s far too much hard work. By the end of December, certainly by mid-January, it’s very drinkable, has a slightly nutty flavour, looks like pale urine, tastes a hell of a lot better. Don’t filter it off, decant it by carefully pouring off the clarified liquid.
I do the same with sloes. Again, don’t bother to prick them, they end up shrivelled so the juices must get through the skin alright. This for years has revived us on cold, wet and windy midwinter nights in the lambing shed. Known here as Lambing Oil, it’s a beautiful red colour and revives you if taken medicinally, I.e. in small doses! The Bullace vodka is a more recent venture, has the same life-giving properties. Both get better the longer they’re left, which can be difficult….. They make very good Christmas presents.