Sloe Gin

[kiteless]

We started some off using an old 1950's recipe back in October, and having let it steep and having shaken the flagon regularly since, we sampled a soupcon of it earlier.

Jesus H fvcking christ it's good. Another 2 weeks of steeping and shaking and it will be majestic.

Having never tried sloe gin before, I can thoroughly recommend it!

[kiteless]

Johnniem said:

Congrats but how does that get us closer to trying your 1950's recipe? We are now intrigued!

Post recipe!

Cheers sir!

Like I said, it's tasting bloody good, but it's our first try and the only thing we had was an old book of mine (where I got it from I can't remember) called "Home Made Country Wines" by Dorothy Wise (priced at 3'6!):

Put 3 pints of ripe, dry sloes in a gallon jar with 1oz of sweet almonds and 1.5lbs of loaf sugar; pour in 2 quarts of gin and cover. Shake the jar every 3 days for 3 months. Strain off the liquor, bottle, and seal with corks. The gin is ready for use or may be kept for years, improving greatly in the keeping.

The above recipe in the book was from a "Mrs Hansard, Lincoln"

[kiteless]

We did prick the sloes (PITA, but I suspect worth it).

"Loaf sugar" in the 50's maybe meant something different from your usual Tate 'n Lyle stuff, so in complete ignorance we used boggo granulated.

[kiteless]

MKnight702 said:

kiteless said:

We did prick the sloes (PITA, but I suspect worth it).

"Loaf sugar" in the 50's maybe meant something different from your usual Tate 'n Lyle stuff, so in complete ignorance we used boggo granulated.

I didn't bother to prick mine, I just put them in the freezer. Once they freeze the skin splits.

Funny you say that.

The home-made wine book says to pick rosehips after the first frost. We wondered why. Last weekend, having had a good frost here in Salop, we had a look and feel of the rosehips. Soft, they were!

So.

After elderflower, wild cherry, elderberry, blackberry, cloverflower, wild damson, and wild plum it seems that the last hedgerow wine of the year will be rosehip.