Sloe gin

A pleasingly large amount of my Bank Holiday Monday was spent making sloe gin. Now I have three satisfyingly large bottles sitting on the alcohol shelf in my kitchen and I am feeling well on the way to becoming a suitably self-sufficient soak. I am taking it as a propitious sign that this was made exactly four months to the day before Christmas and therefore should be ready and tasty in time for seasonal celebrations. Well, to be strictly honest, it would have been made four months to the day before Christmas if I weren’t spending Christmas in Cape Town with K’s family (the carbon emissions! the guilt! the sunshine!), since thanks to a German mother her family traditions dictate that Christmas is actually held on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day. As if the confusion caused by the seasons being the wrong way round wasn’t bad enough!* Still, I imagine the sloe gin will help with the said confusion. “If you can get it through customs”, my future mother-in-law helpfully said.

I’ve never made sloe gin before, so this is all rather much in the way of experimentation. I have already discovered from a small amount of post factum research that August is traditionally regarded as a bit early to pick sloes for gin, and that ideally one should wait for first frosts (which could be any time now, if the general August weather is anything to go by) or until 1st September at least. I live and learn. It will not be the first time that I have drunk some rather strange alcohol in the process. To be honest, the likelihood of us having a free Sunday in September with equally nice weather to go tramping along dykes is already looking a bit slim, and even if we had found such a weekend, it surely wouldn’t have been as much fun as out walk with this weekend, nor would there have been so many hands to get covered with thorns and scratches. If by some chance another such Sunday does turn up, I’ll just have to make another bottle.

The Cottage Smallholder seems to have become my online sloe gin guru, so following her advice, my basic recipe was as follows:

1lb of sloes (or thereabouts)
1 empty litre gin bottle
4 ounces of castor sugar
1 tsp of almond essence
Enough gin to fill the bottle

There does, however, seem to be some dispute what one should do with these ingredients. Should the sloes go in the freezer? Is it better to leave sugar and sloes alone for a week to get to know each other better and add the gin later? I have accordingly made three subtly different batches.

- One ‘basic’ recipe. Sloes were pricked, creating much sticky mess and placed in the bottle. Sugar was added, gin poured on top and finally the almond essence sneaked in at the last moment. The whole lot given a good shake and left until further notice, aside from further shaking to ensure that all the sugar has dissolved.

- One ‘sugar first’ recipe. Sloes pricked and sugar added as above, but then the resulting sticky mess left to sit before the gin is added so that the sugar can draw out the juice from the sloes, which I might add it is doing admirably. I’m not entirely sure when I should add the gin though – any tips?

- One recipe à la sloes gelés. These sloes are still in the freezer.

The bottles have been labelled accordingly (with uncharacteristic care), so I hope I will be able to make a suitable judgement as to the best method around December. Providing, of course, that I stay sober long enough to write a blog entry afterwards.

*For any Southern hemisphereans out there, I know this can be a touchy subject. I would like to take this opportunity to assure you that you have every right to have summer in December, and to associate Christmas with hot sunshine, sunburn and barbecues rather than cold, overcast skies, snows, and roaring open fires. Still, you have to admit that continuing to put snow and robins on your Christmas cards is little bit weird.