Sloe Gin

[shaunpalmer]

Did anyone else make Sloe Gin last autumn ?

For those that didn't give it a try -its cheap to do .
Tesco cheap gin, a bag of sugar and a few sloes is all it takes.

http://www.sloe.biz/

I know its a bit early to be thinking about - but I only just found this poachers corner and nobody seemed to mention it.

[BigJim]

We had fantastic blossom on the sloes this year, so it may be a good year for it.
One benefit of global warming?:) :) :D :D

I won a bottle of Gordons Sloe Gin in a raffle, it is good:) :) . I've never seen it in the shops.

[Big Sandy]

Dont buy Moniak sloe gin (made near Beauly) Urrgghhh, basically. Though to be fair a lot of their other stuff is VERY good.

Home made is much better! Gin is foul on its own, the sloes make it drinkable..thats one thing I disagree with in the recipe Shaun, the 'drink one half of the gin'. Nahh, get two containers, and make twice the sloe gin!

[shaunpalmer]

.thats one thing I disagree with in the recipe Shaun, the 'drink one half of the gin'. Nahh, get two containers, and make twice the sloe gin!

funnily enough that is exactly what I did ;)

[russ2903]

Dont buy Moniak sloe gin (made near Beauly) Urrgghhh, basically. Though to be fair a lot of their other stuff is VERY good.

Home made is much better! Gin is foul on its own, the sloes make it drinkable..thats one thing I disagree with in the recipe Shaun, the 'drink one half of the gin'. Nahh, get two containers, and make twice the sloe gin!

Can't agree more - gin is just awful. After reading these posts I will certainly try sloe gin though.

[piggysteve]

Just finished the last bottle of last years vintage, note to self make more next year.

Steve

[Big Sandy]

Can't agree more - gin is just awful.

LOL! Yeah, kinda makes you realise why the 'gentry' are the way they are. We used to get parties of them,. slewed out of their minds on the stuff.

Much better with sloes.

Do a search for Rumtopf... a big earthenware pot, you fill it with rum (or brandy) and fruit, over several weeks, and the result is very good. It is a big pot..takes some filling, must be near on a gallon. The fruit you use in puddings or fruit cakes afterwards. I do have a recipe somewhere, must try and find that.

Welcome to the forum piggysteve. Interesting subject for a first post, eh? :cheers:

[Olan Giech]

Can't agree more - gin is just awful..

errrmmm I disagree, maybe the make of Gin is low quality, personally I like Bombay Gin. Maybe the way it is served is wrong - I keep my Gin in the freezer along with the Russian vodka and Italian Grappa and should be served in glasses that have also been stored in the freezer.

It's all down to how you keep and serve it I guess, I mean could you imagine drinking Guiness that's been simmered in a pan before drinking it? :scratchCh :ill:

Our sloe gin that was always kept in a dark cupboard was never made by us, but always came as a Crimbo present from Mrs. Borer. Luvvly stuff, I'll be making a kind of Limoncello later this year from the wild oranges I have in my garden.

[Big Sandy]

I have to say, I have tried some expensive varieties of Gin...and no, I didnt like them either. Just personal taste I guess... I prefer a peaty malt whisky myself.
Cheap gin reminds me of them strings of parma violets we used to be given as kids..UUrrgghh. I really do not like vodka....I cant taste it at all. (that would be me and far too many curries I reckon. Its a wonder I have any taste buds left.)

I have tried Grappa though. Not bad, but again not really to my taste.

I like whisky, (a nice Glenfarclas single malt...now then) and rum. Lemon heart rum, or lambs navy.

Blended whisky..Langs Supreme I do like.

Good job we all like different flavours and tastes, eh. be very boring if we didnt.

[Big Sandy]

Incidentally, if any of you are interested in home wine making, I do have a good large amount of recipies...

[Olan Giech]

[QUOTE=Big Sandy;852420](that would be me and far too many curries I reckon. Its a wonder I have any taste buds left.)QUOTE]

my problem is with whiskey, after a certain college party of drinking a litre of cheap blended whiskey in a hour, mixing it with amphetamines and methalated spirits didn't help and heaved for five hours afterwards. As a result I couldn't stomach even the smell of whiskey for about 15 years after that, though now I seem to have gotten over that problem. Even in spite of that particular college experiment I have always been a fan of Irish whiskey

[hippi]

do a days shooting get a mate to drive crackm open a homemade bottle of sloe gin and get mmmmmmmmmm DRUNK love it try soaking a pheasent breast with it

:) :) :)

[Blu]

I have tapped into a fantastic seam of Sloes, and have a couple of last years bottles still to drink, Tanquerays is the best Gin to my knowldge, but the quality of these Sloes would make Anti-Freeze taste exciting.

[Rygel]

I went picking sloes once... Got a thorn in my knuckle, and it went septic, I had to have antibiotics. The sloe gin was WELL worth it though.

mixing it with amphetamines and methalated spirits

I'm not sure I would even consider methylated spirits, other than to use as fuel in a Trangia stove. It's a wonder you survived to tell about it.:eek:

[theoldtrout]

I find it best to keep sloe gin for a year before drinking; use decent gin like Bombay. Gin is rather good with tonic but not as good as a pint of Cotleigh Old Buzzard :)

Angela

[101_nut]

I find it best to keep sloe gin for a year before drinking;
Angela

I've got about 1.5 litres from last year's picking to finish making ... got syrup on the sloes just got to strain it off and add it back to the alcohol ...

So that'll be three bottles down, two to go ...

I tried four different varieties of gin of varying costs and the only difference I could tell was strength of alcohol ... and from my tests I concluded the stronger the better!

AndyG

[Keeper_of_Tess]

Our sloes did really well last year and this year's crop is looking very promising.

Last year's sloe gin is still in a demijohn (or is it demijon?) in the garage, waiting to be poured off the fruit and bottled.

As an experiment, we brought back a few bottles of French alcohol "pour fruits" this year -it's 40% by volume and it cost next to nothing. We plan to make the usual quantity of "proper" sloe gin and a batch using the cheap French alcohol for comparison... well, if it tastes a bit rough, we can always use it for cooking.

[Spanner110]

You have to be joking right, keeping it for a year before drinking, you've more chance of plaiting snot (sorry, don't visulise that one). I managed to look at mine for only three months, and because Gin tastes like hairspray, i bought Brandy instead; Now that really is something. The worst part was *****ing all the sloes, and trying not to keep count as they go in the demijon. The whole lot lasted 3 weeks, still got the red nose and blurred vision.....

[timbott]

You have to be joking right, keeping it for a year before drinking, you've more chance of plaiting snot (sorry, don't visulise that one). I managed to look at mine for only three months, and because Gin tastes like hairspray, i bought Brandy instead; Now that really is something. The worst part was *****ing all the sloes, and trying not to keep count as they go in the demijon. The whole lot lasted 3 weeks, still got the red nose and blurred vision.....

:LAA::LAA::LAA:

cheers, Tim

[secretsquirrel]

Didn't make any last year but you can do the same recipe for gin, vodka, brandy or whiskey.
We did sloe whiskey a couple of years ago, bottled it around christmas and it was all gone by spring! luverly jubbly.
We also made Huckleberry gin two years ago.
It looked like meth's and tasted strange but was drinkable although it didn't keep very well.
We chucked 1/2 a bottle away in the end.

Mr Secret Squirel

[secretsquirrel]

Got the Sloe Brandy on the go early this year.
Had a little test last night, just to make sure it's ok....it is!

[109s3]

I couldent get sloes however we have a very fruitful cherry tree so di the same but cherrys with vodka, it is very nice and so sweet you dont realise you'r getting hammered untill you are!!

[MPi-KMS-72]

Incidentally, if any of you are interested in home wine making, I do have a good large amount of recipies...

I'd love some good recipes, I used to do a lot of home brewing and wine making. In fact it is time to make some hard cider.

[Big Sandy]

Let me know what ingredients you want to try using, and I'll see what recipes we have...

Here's one for you in the meantime Matt


Turbo Cider....

Ingredients:
4.5L of pure apple juice (well, 5 litres, but you get to drink 500ml...)
1tsp yeast

Method:
1. Place 3L of apple juice into a demijohn (assuming everything is sterile)
2. PLace 1tsp of yeast into the demijohn
3. shake to mix
4. leave for 36 to 48hrs to ferment, then top with with the remaining of the juice (dont use all the juice at the start, it will foam a fair bit to start off with.)
5. leave to ferment out
6. Rack off and drink (or if you like cider fizzy then prime as usual)

We used the cheapest 'value' brand pure apple juice, from cartons (actually from tesco). It really is that simple, and it tastes well good. Took about a month in total.

[MPi-KMS-72]

Cidermaking used to be a BIG pastime here in NY and New England. I guess it was a thing that was brought over from England originally as i understand it is quite popular over there? There are still a lot of cider mills over here that produce a lot of cider, though not the alcoholic hard cider.

[Big Sandy]

Popular in a commercial sense I think... Not so good for the ord Joe in the street, as you really need a decent press to get the juice. Hence the cartons!

[secretsquirrel]

I made a cider press a couple of years ago out of a baulk of Elm for the base, an H frame of 3x3 timber & used a 2 ton bottle jack as the press.
6 fertilizer bags of apples pulped up in a bucket with another bit of 3x3 and pressed made about 5 gallons of juice.
Left it to ferment in an air tight bucket with nothing added for about 3 months and my mates nephew got hammered on a pint & a half of the stuff when it was finished.
I thought it was OK as did several 'cider drinkers' who helped 'test' it.

Mr Secret Squirel

[spandit]

I've got a demijohn of slow gin maturing as I type. I added some vanilla pods to the mix when it went in, so we'll see how it fares.

Recently tried some of last year's stuff and it tasted awful - almost mouldy. Realised I hadn't filtered it properly. Ran it through some paper coffee filters to remove the crud and it is much improved!! Sadly, I'm not allowed to drink until Christmas Day afternoon (but I'm sure I'll make up for it!!)

[Big Sandy]

You should give a Harris kwikfine filter (http://www.homewinemaking.co.uk/filter_kits.html) a go. Well worth the cost. I avoided buying one of these for years, using filter paper like you did, but was well impressed.

The company shop4homebrew (http://www.shop4homebrew.co.uk/index.html?lmd=39435.433183)
are pretty good too, have used them in the past, and been very happy with the service.

And, it's christmas day afternoon. How's your head?

[DaveBG]

I make sloe gin..... collect the sloes, put them in the freezer for a week rather than wait for a frost.
Then I have racked off the gin refill the demi john with cider... leave for a week or so then rack the "slider" off....... rocket fuel

[spandit]

Not allowed to drink mine - we're giving away at the wedding :(