The Great Sloe Gin Challenge – Three variations of our sloe gin recipe
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Liqueurs | 162 comments
Beautiful ripe sloes on the bush in September
“Pick after the first frosts,” advise the traditionalists.
“Pick them in September, before the bushes are stripped bare,” chortle the enthusiastic.
“Pick them now and give them a chilly blast in the freezer, to give the effect of the first frost,” suggest the practical.
There are other questions too. If the sloes are left to mature until the first frosts, do they have a better flavour? Does the quality of gin affect the liqueur? Should one strain gin from the sloes after three months, six months, ever?
I telephoned Gilbert to discuss this multiple conundrum. His advice was simple.
“Whatever you do, write it down on a label and stick it on the bottle. Then, if your brew is superb, you have the recipe. Note the tree, the time of picking, the gin and the amount of sugar and sloes. If you used almond essence, note how much on each label.”
I recalled that the most interesting part of his cellar was the vast liqueur wall. The label on each bottle and demijohn was covered in microscopic notes.
“Remember that the combination of gin, sloes and sugar is always better that the separate ingredients, no matter what you do.”
He is right. sloe gin sipped on a cold winter’s night is deliciously dangerous.
We have decided to run The Cottage Smallholder sloe gin test. We are going to make sloe gin now under laboratory conditions in the Cottage Smallholder kitchen. The sloe gin will by tasted and evaluated by a team of three experienced sloe gin drinkers.
Using the same gin (supermarket medium quality) and the same recipe, we are going to make sloe gin with three batches of sloes harvested from the same tree.
- The first bottle will contain freshly picked sloes, picked now in mid September.
- The second will have fresh sloes picked now but which will have had a night in the freezer.
- After the first frosts we are going to return to the same tree with a ladder to collect the frosted sloes that an average height forager can’t reach. The third bottle will contain these.
We will publish are results in a few months time.
Two years later we published the results of the sloe gin recipe challenge.
Sloe Gin Recipe:
Ingredients:
- 1lb/454gm of washed sloes
- 4 ozs/112gm of white granulated sugar
- 1 75cl bottle of medium quality gin
- Sterilised 1 litre (at least) Le Parfait jar or wide necked bottle
- 1 small quarter tsp almond essence
Method:
- 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 usually strain and bottle after a year. We use some beautiful old heine brandy bottles with cork lids. If you are feeling flush Lakeland sell some pretty bottles here. Don’t leave the straining process any longer than a year; leaving the fruit in too long can spoil the liqueur.
For loads more tricks and tips on making sloe gin see the original sloe gin recipe
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Mmmm… sloe rum sounds good! Did you use dark or white rum? Also, can you use old wine bottles to make your sloe gin/vodka/rum in? (screw top ones)
i did sloe rum last year and was just as good and with the sloes from the bottle after i sieved it i froze them and mashed them into vanilla ice cream..and added broken meringue it was amazing….this year i am trying blackberry brandy using same principles as sloe rum/gin etc….just picked my fruit today …
Cheers James – I’m off to the supermarket tomorrow to get the gin!
Deb – if you’re not going to use them soon, I’d put them in the freezer. As you will read above, this usually splits the skins so you don’t need to prick them when making the drink. The colour change isn’t anything to worry about IMO – the ‘bloom’ disappears naturally when they’ve been picked.
Help! I am new to sloe gin making and I think I™ve got off to a bad start. I picked about 2lbs of sloes the last week of August: I™ve left them in a bag to ripen(?!) and their blue hue is now replaced by black, but the berries are softer. Should I throw them away and go back for fresh ones? I hate to waste them.
I nearly missed them this year – I went to have a look at our favourite hedgerow a few days ago and was amazed to see it full of sloes, and with blackberries well on the way. I should have realised, as the plums in our garden are pretty well over already.
I hope I didn’t sound too critical above – I just think you have to make hay while the sun shines!
Sloes are early this year. Just picked mine this weekend and they’re perfectly ripe. Anyway, as many of the bushes had already been heavily picked I had to pick the higher branches so didn’t want to wait any longer.
My recipe uses 450g of sloes and 225g sugar to each litre of gin. I used to prick them with a pin before I learned the freezer trick, which works better, particularly if you freeze, thaw and refreeze until the skins start breaking down and then put them in the sugar to extract the juice before adding the gin. A small handful of whole almonds is, I think, a better way to add an extra dimension than using essence.
Hi again
I actually picked my sloes on 31st August as they felt just about right to me – plump and just starting to soften a little when pressed gently. I think they would have gone over or have disappeared if left any longer, but I may be wrong.
I’ve popped them in the freezer to simulate the ‘frosting’ because living in Cornwall, we’re unlikely to get a frost before next January anyway, so I would have been waiting a long time!
It will be interesting to see the outcome.
As mentioned by James in the previous post, most soft fruit seems to have ripened early this year. I heard that this was due to the particularly warm and dry Spring which has brought everything forward by nearly a month – including Autumn, which now seems to be well on its way.
Soft fruit in general seems to be very early this year, and there’s not a lot of point in waiting for the ‘right time’ if other people and wildlife are going to get it before you!
Just found your site when trying to find out the best time to pick our sloes. It would be great if we could have the result of your experiment before we dedide.