Superb sloe vodka recipe
Comments(67)
We have found that most fruit recipes work equally well with gin or vodka. With a few exceptions. Raspberry gin is sublime and dessert gooseberry vodka is to kill for. Their cousins, Raspberry vodka and dessert gooseberry gin are companiable and gluggable but not the super stars of the cocktail cabinet.
We traditionally always make sloe gin. Lots of it. This year I has so many sloes that I decided to give sloe vodka a whirl. A litre of vodka made two 750ml bottles of grog. One for the cellar and one for testing and tasting.
I need to clear a space on the shelves in the barn to put our sloe gin and vodka out of reach. When I do this, it matures quietly, without being disturbed. I haven’t had time to do his so our kitchen side looks like a sloe liqueur drinker’s paradise. It has also had an impact on using the toaster which sits behind the bottles and jars. A careful, crane like movement is needed to operate the toaster.
Late one night, I spotted the sloe vodka on the kitchen side and thought that I’d have a teeny taste. It was wonderful. Clean, crisp, punchy and absolutely delicious. It was barely three weeks old. Made with the sloes that I picked from John’s garden on October 27th.
I had another toot the next night and then waved the bottle in front of Danny’s nose. Then other visitors were introduced to this ambrosia. Reviews were good and glasses refilled.
I am ashamed to announce that our tasting bottle is almost finished but delighted that I tried sloe vodka this year. I hate to admit it but I think that sloe vodka is better than sloe gin.
I had a 800g of sloes in the freezer so Jalopy and I rumbled over to Tesco on Saturday and bought an extra large bottle of medium priced vodka. Made 2 x 75ml bottles as per the above recipe and was left with 570ml of vodka. I added the remaining sloes (336g) and topped up with just over a kilo of sugar. This will produce the really ‘thick’ sloe liqueur that loads of our friends adore. This is the bottle in the photo with the white label. The label is actually the sugar -scary stuff! If we have a super party and a tasting, the sugar lovers will not be left out for years, as they have been in the past. We like the sharp taste of our grog. This bottle will be for sweet toothed visitors only.
If you still have access to sloes try our recipe. You won’t regret it.
I will report back on how the thick sugar solution sloe vodka develops in a few months time!
Superb sloe vodka recipe
Ingredients:
- 1lb/454gm of washed sloes
- 4 ozs/112gm of white granulated sugar
- 2 empty 75cl vodka bottles
- I litre of medium quality vodka
Method
- Wash sloes well and discard any bruised or rotten fruit. Prick fruit several times with a fork and place sloes half the sloes in each 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.
- Shake every day until the sugar is dissolved and then store in a cool, dark place until you can resist it no longer (try to leave for at least three months, we usually let it mature for a year. As you can see from above it was overwhelmingly moreish at three weeks).
- Some people strain the grog (through muslin/jelly bag) after 3 months and bottle it, leaving it mature for six months. We will strain and bottle any that’s left after six moths as I want to try making sloe sherry and slider (farmhouse cider and gin/vodka soaked sloes as recommended into the comments section of our sloe gin posts). Don’t leave the straining process longer than a year; leaving the fruit in too long can spoil the liqueur.
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The sloes from the blackthorn in our garden are destined for sloe vodka. I’m looking forward to it . . . but the sloes are still in the freezer and there are 2 large bottles of vodka still sitting on the kitchen table (and getting strange questioning looks from visitors!).
I must get the ’sloe-vodka-meister’ to get his act together – then maybe I’ll get to sample it in 2008!
wow, that is a lot of sugar!
i have sampled my various concoctions recently and have added more sugar to them – shouldn’t have bought such cheap spirits – but i was not brave enough to add THAT much.
the sampling should have been done on seperate days – i ended up going to bed early feeling just a little squiffy! yum, yum.
Hi Celia,
I love making these fruit liquers. By finding the time is always the problem. The giant vodka bottle was knocking around in the kitchen for about a week before it was used!
Hi Anne,
I don’t like the really sugary thick sloe gin (or Vodka)so this one with a kilo of sugar is just for friends with a really sweet tooth.
It’s potent stuff!
Now you’re tempting me to try my damson vodka I made back in September… It calls to me often, but I’m trying not to taste it until the New Year – maybe I’ll just sneak a little taste tonight…
Hi Richard,
Don’t do this unless you have gallons of the stuff!
After just three weeks the feedback for the sloe vodka was 100%. We do have more. 2 (vintage 5 week old bottles) and a vast swathe of newly made grog. It’s hands off for a while!
How delicious. You’re right about varying the fruit. I’ve only just discovered this by accident. When some people cancelled because they got stuck in the floods, I put the cherries which I had stoned ready for the duck into some vodka because I thought it might preserve them for using them again. I don’t know about preserving, but the vodka’s pretty tasty. Sugar! Now that’s what it’s been missing…..
http://www.thecotswoldfoodyear.com
Hi James,
Cherries! I haven’t though about using them in a vodka liqueur…
Thanks for the tip.
Hi all, trying these ideas out, someone also said to add a tiny bit of almond essence to the sloe vodka!
Just trying blueberry for a giggle, so far so good cant wait….anyway thx for the recipes
happy sipping
)
Hi Rob
I’ve added almond essence to sloe gin and will try it in vodka next year.
Love to hear how the blueberry vodka works out!
were do you get sloes from and when and can you bye them if you cant pick them and were do you bye them thanks
Hi, just reading about your raspberry and sloe vodkas… will try those. Just thought I’d mention that Cranberry Vodka is pretty darn fine too. Same proportions and method as sloe gin, and it’s by far my favourite. Bramble Brandy (Again the same method and proportions) is alos a bit of a favourite. And both are far more forgiving of having too much sugar or too little, than Sloe Gin. Flynn
Hi J Manston
I have never seen them on sale apart from in London – Waitrose, £5.99 a punnet (late September).
Hello Flynn
I’ve heard that cranberry vodka is good and had forgotten about it so thanks for the nudge.
Must try bramble brandy too. Thanks!
My mother passed down her sloe gin recipe to me and we are now in our third year of successful production having found a blackthorn bush lurking at the back of the garden behind the shed! I am very much looking forward to trying the vodka version on this year’s sloes.
For anyone that finds pricking kilos of sloes a time-consuming nightmare like I do, I tried just scoring them with a sharp knife on one side (just through the skin), you can do several at a time and I find it much quicker – and the results are the same.
Hi Liz
Any chance of sharing your mother’s recipe?
Thanks for the pricking tips.
Hi,
Sure. I use kilner type jars. Prick/slit sloes and loosely pack in the jar till about 3/4 full. Add granulated sugar – 4oz to a 1lb jar, 8oz to a 2lb jar. Top up with gin, seal and leave 3-4 months in a cool, dark place. The earliest I decant mine into bottles is usually Christmas, but if I can resist for longer (or I have made loads!) then it gets better!
I have varied this recipe occasionally. It makes a very sweet liquer with a strong flavour which is delicious on its own or makes a very refreshing summer drink when served with tonic.
I tend to reduce the sloes to about 2/3 of the jar (out of laziness mostly!) and reduce the sugar slightly (especially if I have found the sloe sized wild plums which seem to be sweeter) as I like the slightly sharp taste that this produces. If I have enough sloes I make one sweet jar and one sharper, then blend the resulting liquers until it is just right!!
Can I just add that if you freeze the sloes for 24 hours, the skins will split and you don’t have to do any pricking or scoring….
Flynn, bramble brandy sounds good; do you think that works better than blackberry vodka?
Thanks to everyone for all these great ideas and recipes. I’ve made sloe gin and sloe vodka for the first time and, of course, sampled it. It’s brilliant and seems to be getting better by the week (I think that repeated sampling is essential!)
I’m sure I saw somewhere on this site that you could also use the sloes again to make a sort of fortified wine. Can anyone tell me whether I need to use white or red wine and if I need to add sugar? On bottle of sloe vodka has already been drained and those sloes are just begging for some wine.
Many thanks.
Glen
Heloo Liz
Thanks for the recipe. Much appreciated!
Hi Jenny
I’d like to have a go at bramble whisky. I reckon that three months infusion is the limit, as with blackberry vodka to avoid the woodiness developing.
Hi Glen
We use sherry rather than wine. Our recipe is here http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/?p=104
[...] was until the reality sunk in about having to stone all the pesky berries! Roll on, the 6 litres of sloe vodka. Yum! [...]
Hi all,
After taking a part time job at tesco’s (i know it’s a sinful place but i needed some money after redundancy) I found 24 boxes(300g each)of blueberrys being thrown into the crusher. I immediatley stopped this stupid waste and now have 3 gallons of wine and 2 litres of vodka on the go. Did anyone else try the blueberry vodka or will i have to wait an see how it turns out?
I am now also awaiting any other “Waste” that can be recycled in this way
Hi Rob
You are lucky to have secured a job at Tesco. Apparently those jobs are like gold dust nowadays. You are also in a great place for recycling food that would otherwise be dumped!
I have made blueberry vodka. It tasted a bit thin. So if they are throwing out a punnet of raspberries I’d recommend adding a handful to pep up the grog.
I’ve never made or tried blueberry wine so can’t advise how it will turn out.
Hi All, best way around the chore of pricking sloes is to lay them out on a cloth on a hard flat surface and with a flat coarse grater (you know the one you use for grating lemon peel) roll them around, dont press too hard so that the fruit squash. This pierces the skins just enough and you can do probably enough for a bottle on one tea towel in a few minutes.
Best wishes on your ‘makings’. Just off for another nip, hic’
Hi, Just stubbled on this website after googling sloes. Had some from asda at xmas and loved it have had a couple of bottles since. I am a childminder and have three children of my own so need a nice relaxing drink at night. Sloe gin and ice it sublime. Reading all your comments and seeing that lots of you mention different fruit, so I would like to know can you use any berried fruit to make these drinks.
Many thanks.
Hi Denise
Yes you can use lots of different fruit : damsons, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, red/white/black currants, blueberries etc.
DONT WASH the sloes!!! The powdery bloom Granny said is the secret to a good sloe gin or vodka.
Hi Clare
Thanks for the tip. I didn’t know that.
i live in bromley kent and have been making sloe gin sloe vodka for years i put the sugar in with vodka / gin disolve then add the sloes works just as well shake every day last year made sloe schnapps excellent also pick sloes from our garden august very good you get a good crop every 2 years very good this year all the best
Have just finished my first bottle of Sloe Vodka bought at a rural Christmas market last year. If I pick some Sloe’s this season will the resulting Sloe Vodka be good to go this Christmas or do I need to resort to ’shop’ bought for one more year? Also when is the best time to pick in the North?
Hi Edward
Thanks for sharing your method. Sloe schnapps sounds great too.
Hi Claire
Your sloe vodka should be good for Christmas. I’ve discovered that the vodka seems to mature more quickly than the gin.
Hi Sloe Vodka Buddies
Still got a demi-jon left from last year as we made quite a lot (4 LITRES!)! After decanting the sloe vodka from the demi-jon we added a small bottle of cheap whisky to the residue sloes some more sugar, just to try it out – EXCITING! Pour sloe vodka over ice-cream – YUMMY! Try finding those small chocolate shot cups and add sloe vodka – AMAZING! Great tip re pricking sloes, Graeme in January
Oddly, I didn’t know that sloe vodka was named after a fruit. I guess that’s what you get for growing up on the West Coast of the US, where blackthorn/sloe trees are not common (or found at all – I’m on a search now!).
That being said, I have made plenty of infused liquors over the years. My favorites are blackberry or elderberry vodka (you can even pretend the elderberry one is just medicine
and ginger bourbon. Mmm… ginger bourbon! Just throw a couple slices of ginger in a bottle of bourbon and be a happy, happy camper all winter.
This spring/summer I have been branching out. I made a vin de noix with black walnuts and spices infused in white wine and vodka. I also did a peach/blueberry/melissa (lemon balm) wine with lots of sugar, and plums in a mix of white wine and vodka. No sugar in that one, yet, but I need to strain it soon to get the pits out. Oh – and the hot chili pepper/black peppercorn vodka, and the mint vodka!
I think the sky is the limit with infused liquors. What do you have avaliable? Throw it in some liquor and see how it turns out
Now I have to find me a blackthorn tree….
hi Alyss
What a wonderful suggestion re the Ginger Bourbon – I’ll be trying that! To find a blackthorn initially you look for the copious white blossom in early spring, notably in hedgerows, and mind-mark it for later. Finding the blackthorn shrub with fruit you’ll have to wait until September at the earliest – small leaves and, as the name suggests,very long, sharp, hard black thorns – be prepared to suffer for your picking efforts! Just bottled some wild plum jam – great recipe from this site and delicious! Elderberries/blackberries next for the bottle/jar!
hi all!! i have just moved to a new area outof london… we have wonderful place’s to visit where i have moved to – one being walking distance
i noticed someone picking blackberries the other day. and had to investigate! i haven’t done this since i was a child. i found damsons!! had to look them up as i had never seen them, and what looks like a sloe berry, although i didnt notice any thorns!! i will look again. i did cut it open and it looks like a tiny plum, with a tiny stone inside?
any way they seem to be ready now, coming away nice and easy slightly soft to, but i have been reading on here that you should wait until after the first frost’s – i am new to all this and need some pointers…..
so any help and advise would be great.
xx
Am about to make sloe vodka also have grown a vast amouts of chillies so am going to wack them in both gin and vodka ha ha lets see what happens.
I have picked loads of sloes, its a real bumper crop this year and they are really large. I know there has been the tip to freeze them to create the frost but can you leave them frozen so that I can create batches up to and after the festive season as I seem to give a lot away at Christmas. Oh and by the way the family think I am mad as I spend my evenings looking for another recipe to create. I wish I had found your site earlier in the year – the raspberry liqueurs look great but there is always next season.
Hi Alyss
Thanks so much for all your ideas. Can’t wait to try them out.
Hi Jan
Great information on identifying sloes. Thank you.
Glad that you liked the plum jam.
Hi Sara
You don’t have to wait until the first frosts, just whack them un the freezer.
Re sloe identification etc I recommend Richard Maybes Food for Free. The pocket edition is on offer on Amazon and just under £3.00 – a real bargain.
Hello Tim
Great idea. Have you tried chilli sherry – http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/?p=98
Hi Quackerz
Yes you can freeze sloe for later use but I wouldn’t leave them in the freezer for more than three months as their flavour will diminish.
My family used to be like that until they tasted the produce
This year has been a bumper year for both Sloes and blackberries.
I normally make jam or puddings with the blackberries so I’m keen to try to try the Vodka and Brandy with them. Can anyone tell me what quantity of sugar is required for them.
Hello Mary Jo
The raspberry gin recipe here
http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/?p=53
gives the amount of sugar for blackberry gin/vodka.
I’ve not made blackberry brandy so can’t help with that.
hello to you all,this year will be my first sloe gin,vodka bonanza and i cant wait.We moved into a place in the country nearly 3 years ago and i am lucky to have 200ft of sloe bush going along one side of my property,thanks for all the ideas i will definatley be putting one away for next year a real vintage.thanks again all the best bernie
Hi Bernie
Wow you are lucky to have sloes in your garden!
Thanks for dropping by.
I have just got in from collecting 11 lb of big juicy sloes from just two bushes!!! what a bumper crop. Last year was terrible down my way – I’m so excited!! I intend to make 1/2 gin 1/2 vodka and decant into gift bottles for friends and family at christmas. I have read somewhere about dipping left over sloes in luxury dark choc – could be scrummy and also a nice gift maybe – off to the cash and carry now for the plonk!
Hi Natalie
Lucky you, 11 lbs is a great haul.
Last year was terrible around here too.
sorry mate but chilli sherry sounds sooo wrong, how ever in last years sloe gin i added some stuff called glog from Denmark a herb and spice liquid they add to wine and serve warm and if i say so my self its very very nice just adds that little winter feeling to the gin.
I made damson brandy and used the left over damsons to make chocolate sweets to go with the tipple of damson brandy. oooo it was heaven…. Not quite the same with sloes…
Maggie
Hi Tim
I must try and get hold of glog. Sounds good.
Chilli sherry is great, it can lift a soup or a sauce in seconds. Also bracing head clearing stuff if you have a cold
Hi Maggie
I’m going to make sweets this year too.
The trick that I find works best (and I can’t remember where I got it from) is to add the sloes to the sugar in a suitable container – but don’t add anything else at this stage. Turn the sugar + sloe mixture (or shake it about a bit) every day for a couple of weeks and then (and only then) add the alcohol and any other ingredients.
The rationale is that the sugar extracts all the juice that it can by osmosis and when that is finished, the alcohol gets the rest.
Hi Dirk
This sounds an intersting alternative method. Can’t wait to give it a go. Thank you.
Hi Dirk
That sounds a novel way of doing it. How long would you start to drink it after adding the alcohol? Do you need to leave it couple of months?
I wouldn’t mind trying to flavour the drink with raspberries or blackberries one year. My crop of raspberries has just been a handful. very disappointing.
Maggie
There isn’t any difference in the length of time before drinking. All one is doing is using the osmotic pressure available within the sugar to extract more of the juice from the sloes.
The important thing is to make sure that the sloes are well pricked (or frozen) so that the sugar can get in to do its work. Another thing that happens is that one gets a more intense colour as the sugar also extracts the anthocyanins in the skin better than just the alcohol (greater osmotic pressure again).
If one likes one’s sloe gin/vodka sharp then once all the sugar has dissolved in the juice it has extracted, then one can add the alcohol straight away. I like it a touch sweeter, so there is usually sugar left still undissolved after a fortnight.
Don’t forget the almond essence (and use the real stuff). A few drops makes all the difference.
[...] sloe vodka [...]
Hi just love this site so many people with so much info! Since escaping to the country 6 yrs ago I have successfully made sloe gin and vodka. We tried blackberry vodka but it ended up looking brown and didn’t taste good either – where did I go wrong?
Recently found wild plum and yellow bullace trees all just ripe – 12 lbs of fruit were picked in no time.
Tasted Sloe Whisky with honey at a show recently promised my mum I’d make some anyone seen such a recipe?
Hi I’m new to usig sloes but decided to try some sloe vodka this year, but I only have orange vodka in the cupboard do you think it work?
Hello extownie
Blackberry vodka – only leave the blackberries in the vod for 3 months max of it will taste woody and vile.
Perhaps you could use Dirks method (above).
Don’t know of a recipe for sloe whisky, sorry.
Hi Lynda
I’d start of using plain vodka if I was you
I have just been up my lane to pick the sloes. Only one bush this year with the sloes so meager helpings at New Year, i know we are meant to leave for three months, but no chance in this household. Just popping them in the freezer!!! as at moment sitting in the gardens in the sunshine and temperatures of 19c
When I moved house this summer after getting married I found the punnet of half-price cranberries I had bought, intending to try some cranberry and raspberry jam. Needless to say that never happened, but there are several bottles of cranberry gin “resting in the cellar”.
I’m tee-total but a chemistry graduate, so it’s all about the experimentation! The wife will make short work of the grog, I’m sure. Along with the sloe gin and sloe vodka I’ve made this week…
I freeze the sloes, then make the rocket fuel. After a couple of days I drain and then prick them, returning everything to the bottle. Seems to speed the process up – but that’s not proven yet. Good year for sloes. Remember to leave some for the birds, though!
Hi Sarah Louise
We often drink ours way to early too
Sunshine at this time of year is such a joy.
Hello Rob
Cranberry gin sounds excellent. Your wife is very lucky indeed.
Hi just to update, fn, decided to try the orange vodka wuth the sloes and it’s works very well have now got a small amount waiting to be opened at xmas if it lasts that long!!
Liking the idea of cranberry gin Sarah Louise might give that a try!
Hello Lynda
Brilliant news – thanks for the update!
Hi
I am nearly ready to bottle my liquers. Sloe bacardi and vodka is tasting lovely. But i am not sure on the gin. It is not sweet but still abit bitter. I am not quite sure how its supposed to be when bought from the shops. Whats peoples preference on this?
Also, looking at some older blogs, a recipe for slider seems good way to recycle the sloes. Add the sloes from whatever, I will use the gin, vodka and bacardi and add it to farmhouse cider. Not sure if that is sparkly strongbow or a still cider. I do prefer strongbow or stowford press. Has anyone recently tried this ?
Maggie x
Hi Maggie
The gin needs about 6 months to mature ideally. I don’t know why but gin seems to take longer than other spirits.
I haven’t tried slider yet but everyone says it’s great. Personally I would use sparkly.
Have been making sloe gin for a few years now and my 2004 batch ( not much left now !! ) is like a liqueur, similar consistency of Drambuie!! And for the first time this year i tried vodka so really looking forward to trying this, For a laugh why not try Skittles vodka, all you need is a small packet of said sweet and add to the bottle of vodka ( after drinking a little so it does not overflow, then as with before, just agitate over a few days and the skittles will dissolve.
Hi
Bottling time is here. Just done my sloe bacardi. Previously when I have served my sloe bacard/gin/vodka I have served it neat. My guests always said…”wow, thats nice”. I think tho that maybe I should be adding some tonic/soda/lemonade.
How do other people prefer their drinks?
Happy drinking.
Maggie
Am I the only person making sloe gin and vodka in February?
I have finally defrosted the sloes and am going for the kilner jar and the dry sugar osmotic method above. I don’t think all the sloes have split but I reckon they will over the next few days as I shake them up with the sugar!
I find sloe gin a bit sweet usually so have reduced (halved?) the sugar to 4 oz per 2lb jar 3/4 full of sloes. Will that be too dry?
And – I have never added vanilla to sloe gin before so would like to experiment. My vanilla essence bottle looks as though it dates back to the late 60s so I guess that might be “inadequate”. I do have a real vanilla pod. Any ideas how much I should use? I would like a hint of vanilla rather than a vanilla flavour!
Well thanks to you at this site ive done my sloe vodka end of Sept. Mid Oct. Well iv had a few diggs at it and its very-very good. I look forward to doing lots more this next season as iv found an old estate that has hedge fulls of them so i will be trying lots more mixes including bacardi sloe. Tell you how it works out . Thanks again.
Further to my note on Cranberry gin (Nov 4th), add more sugar! Normal quantities turns it into something fit only for the lawnmower.
Re Simons Skittles vodka….take out the purple and green ones for a better looking drink (it can look a bit brown and uninviting otherwise) you end up with a reddy orange colour drink…….very nice it is too
After seeing sloes in abundance yesterday and seeing your recipes am looking forward to making both sloe vodka and gin,just ashame that have to wait for sloes to rippen….but should be excellent and well worth waiting for!!