Home brewing antics can now be found at my other blog; http://gettinggrist.blogspot.com/

Wednesday 21 September 2011

Free Harvest

Although there’s a great deal of satisfaction to be had from harvesting crops you’ve nurtured from seed, there’s nothing quite like the pleasure of a free harvest.

Plundering the hedgerow for their bounty can be very rewarding. Especially when there’s alcohol involved.

I have to thank a friend of mine for identifying the fruit which hangs from the hedgerow at the bottom of our garden. Among the brambles and blackberries, it’s the fruit of the Hawthorn. The sloe.

A solitary sloe

So last year, armed with this knowledge and a recipe from said friend, I embarked on my first ever batch of sloe gin.

Basically, I emptied the contents of a gin bottle into a jug and filled the bottle about the third of the way up with sloes, all of which had been pricked with a needle. The gin is then returned to the bottle with sugar – about half as much sugar to the weight of the sloes.

(The remainder of the gin can either be drunk, or used to make up another bottle of sloe gin).

The bottle is then sealed and given a shake. The bottle should be gently turned and shaken every other day for a week, then once a week for a couple of months.

It was then strained through a muslin cloth into some rustic looking bottles with swing-top lids.

I guess you can drink it straight away, but it definitely improves with age. This is some of last year’s batch. Smooth, warming with a hint of almond.



Even if you’re not keen on gin, give it a go. You might be surprised. I certainly was – either drink it or pour it over ice. It goes down particularly well at Christmas. We left some out for Mr Claus last year and it was much appreciated.

3 comments:

  1. You are absolutely right Mark!

    You can't beat it can you!

    Martin :0)

    ReplyDelete
  2. i made gooseberry vodka this time last year, must dig it out some time.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love sloe gin! It is one of the many things I love about winter - I got our 3 litres on the go this weekend!
    Philippa

    ReplyDelete