Discussion
After making my first last year (picked 2nd week in december and still relatively plentiful! thank you Cornwall) started a bit earlier upcountry. Not looking too great a harvest, quite a few were looking very shrivelled but been on 2 picks and got enough to add to 500ml of gin from Northamptonshire and 750ml from East Sussex. Of to Somerset, Devon, Warwickshire (and of course Cornwall) in the next month so hoping to have a few litres in a grand sloe gin tour of England.
z4chris99 said:
a good place to pick sloes in somerset is Ash Priors Common.. loads of the fkers.
damson's grow there too... also very good in gin
Have you had a look this year?damson's grow there too... also very good in gin
Got 1.5 kg of damsons today off two bushes by our house that I didn't even notice last year The main trees weren't doing well and then got stripped of what little there was at some point this week
Went out to survey our normal picking area yesterday afternoon, and the farmer has recently trimmed the hedge with a tractor. Not a single sloe to be seen, just some severely trimmed bushes.
Will have to find somewhere else nearby instead, but it's so foggy here at the moment I don't think I'd be able to see my hand in front of my face, let alone some sloes in a bush!
Will have to find somewhere else nearby instead, but it's so foggy here at the moment I don't think I'd be able to see my hand in front of my face, let alone some sloes in a bush!
Managed to pick about 1kg today, had to walk about a mile from home to find them but also got a good haul of blackberries so now have a bottle of blackberry vodka maturing in the cupboard. Last year's sloe gin is now bottled and today's sloes are rinsed and in the freezer to go in the preserving jar next weekend.
What do I do with a kilo of sloes which have spent the last year swimming in gin? It seems such a waste to just bin them!
What do I do with a kilo of sloes which have spent the last year swimming in gin? It seems such a waste to just bin them!
jamiebae said:
What do I do with a kilo of sloes which have spent the last year swimming in gin? It seems such a waste to just bin them!
Stone them, and use a good dark chocolate (85% works for me, your mileage may vary) to cover. I have hands like a pound of sausages, so I end up with small chunks of drunken sloe. Mmmm.either I'm too late and someone else got them, or we just didn't have anything this year Luckily I've been saving last year's gin as it wasn't ready last Christmas.
We do have a good crop of haws through so perhaps I ought to dust off the hawthorn brandy recipe. It tastes just like Pimms ...
We do have a good crop of haws through so perhaps I ought to dust off the hawthorn brandy recipe. It tastes just like Pimms ...
Our usual sloe larders are very reduced, and we think it's down to the high winds earlier this year coinciding with the sloe blossoms. The plum trees nearby have also been bereft of any fruit whatsoever for the same reason, I suspect. So much so that this is the first year we'll not have some Victoria Plum wine on the go, and resorted to using supermarket fruit. Bottled this afternoon, it's a soave colour rather than a deep rose colour that results when we use wild plums.
We've got just enough sloes for one batch of gin, though
We've got just enough sloes for one batch of gin, though
oldbanger said:
either I'm too late and someone else got them, or we just didn't have anything this year Luckily I've been saving last year's gin as it wasn't ready last Christmas.
We do have a good crop of haws through so perhaps I ought to dust off the hawthorn brandy recipe. It tastes just like Pimms ...
What is this hawthorn brandy recipe? We do have a good crop of haws through so perhaps I ought to dust off the hawthorn brandy recipe. It tastes just like Pimms ...
Bill said:
jamiebae said:
What do I do with a kilo of sloes which have spent the last year swimming in gin? It seems such a waste to just bin them!
Make Slerry - add them to sherry to steep.Mobile Chicane said:
oldbanger said:
either I'm too late and someone else got them, or we just didn't have anything this year Luckily I've been saving last year's gin as it wasn't ready last Christmas.
We do have a good crop of haws through so perhaps I ought to dust off the hawthorn brandy recipe. It tastes just like Pimms ...
What is this hawthorn brandy recipe? We do have a good crop of haws through so perhaps I ought to dust off the hawthorn brandy recipe. It tastes just like Pimms ...
Weigh the haws and put them into a large jar with half as much sugar by weight. Fill with brandy to top.
Leave for at least 4 weeks somewhere cool and dark (the longer the better), shaking now and then.
Strain off haws, bits etc and bottle up the liquid.
There's a proper recipe in one of the River Cottage handbooks apparently.
I've also now just discovered this Hawthorn Schnapps(vodka) recipe.
http://www.danish-schnapps-recipes.com/hawthorn.ht...
oldbanger said:
Mobile Chicane said:
oldbanger said:
either I'm too late and someone else got them, or we just didn't have anything this year Luckily I've been saving last year's gin as it wasn't ready last Christmas.
We do have a good crop of haws through so perhaps I ought to dust off the hawthorn brandy recipe. It tastes just like Pimms ...
What is this hawthorn brandy recipe? We do have a good crop of haws through so perhaps I ought to dust off the hawthorn brandy recipe. It tastes just like Pimms ...
Weigh the haws and put them into a large jar with half as much sugar by weight. Fill with brandy to top.
Leave for at least 4 weeks somewhere cool and dark (the longer the better), shaking now and then.
Strain off haws, bits etc and bottle up the liquid.
There's a proper recipe in one of the River Cottage handbooks apparently.
I've also now just discovered this Hawthorn Schnapps(vodka) recipe.
http://www.danish-schnapps-recipes.com/hawthorn.ht...
Went out picking to make a 4th bottle this afternoon, looking rather bleak, plenty of bushes with nothing on, many looking like this
then a few yards down the hedge you would find a good few handful of sloes on a single bush.
An absolute shed load of blackberries though, down in Devon last weekend and every lane had bushes overloaded with them, same up here.
then a few yards down the hedge you would find a good few handful of sloes on a single bush.
An absolute shed load of blackberries though, down in Devon last weekend and every lane had bushes overloaded with them, same up here.
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