Sloe Gin

As I mentioned in my previous post, we picked 3lb of sloe berries for making sloe gin. Once we had got back from Newcastle and been to the super market I started preparing the berries.




For this recipe we bought 2 bottles of gin, a 1.5litre bottle and a 75cl bottle. We also needed a bag of sugar. The quanties we prepared for where 2.25litres of gin, too 3lb of berries and 1.5lb of sugar.

The berries needed to be washed first. Then you need to prick them with a fork. You can't really just bash them up as you will get all the berry stones in the gin. Pricking the berries took ages, but once they had been done I put them in the demi jon.

Then I added the sugar. I was a bit worried that the quantities were wrong at first as it looked like far to many berries and sugar, but Amanda had a search on the internet and found lots of sloe gin recipes. The recipes varied quite a lot, but it looks like the mixture we put together was roughly in the middle of all the others.

Once the sugar has been put in we added the gin and put the bottle stopper in and gave it a good shake.

We now need to leave it for 3 or 4 months in a dark place giving it a shake twice a day. I'm looking forward to it being ready, sloe gin is nice. Amanda is also going to make some baileys. She bought all the ingredients earlier, but not enough cream, so we will make that later in the week.