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GTB · Bushton Bushwacker Joined: 05 Jun 2007 Posts: 2206 Status:

Sloe Gin:
Approx. 1kg sloes. I have used around 1kg of sloes and a handful of redcurrants.
1 Kg Sugar
2ltrs Gin
1 Demijohn

Pour the sugar into a clean, dry demijohn. Pick over your fruit to make sure you don't have any rotten or dirty fruit. Prick or split the fruit to release their colour and flavour and place in the demijohn. Pour in your gin over the fruit and sugar. Seal the top of the demijohn and give it a good shake making sure to stir everything up. Place the demijohn in a cool dark place for the next three or four months, remembering to give it a good shake every two weeks or so. After three or four months you will find that all the sugar has dissolved and the berries have all sunk to the bottom. To bottle the sloe gin off, simply syphon the liquid into nice, small bottles which makes a great present or perfect liqueur.

Here is my sloe gin just before it was given a nice shake.

Here is some sloe gin that I made a few years ago that was nearing maturity ready for bottling. As you can see it soon gets a lovely colour.

You will find that when you have syphoned off your sloe gin you are left with about 25mm - 50mm of berries and sediment which also contains an amount of gin. To use this small amount up, simply fill the demijohn back up (leaving an air gap) with rough cider (proper cider not Strongbow or the like). You will need to add an air lock because you will reactivate any yeast which is present in the cider and you don't want any explosions! After about a month this "slider" will either stop bubbling or will have absorbed enough flavourings and colour to be ready to drink. If it hasn't stopped bubbling you can either wait until it's finished or pop a camden tablet into the liquid to kill the yeast.

Enjoy!

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Local lass · Calnetalk Oracle Joined: 05 Jun 2007 Posts: 4792 Status:

How long does it last for as i still have a bottle from 4 years ago

GTB · Bushton Bushwacker Joined: 05 Jun 2007 Posts: 2206 Status:

Because the sloe gin is pretty high in alcohol I would say that, in the right circumstances, it would keep for at least 20 years. Maybe longer. What's the oldest anyone has heard of sloe gin being kept??

Here's my sloe gin at about three weeks old.

As you can see, it already has a nice claret type colour to it. I reckon I will bottle this up just before Christmas and then make some slider.

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