Whether you make your own or not, sloe gin works as well as a perfect tipple on a frosty night, or as a marinade for roast pheasant, apples or rhubarb
Nigel Slater
Sun 25 Jan 2015 06.00 GMT
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Many a winter’s dinner round our kitchen table comes to a close with a glass or two of sloe gin. Heg-pegs, slags, winter kecksies or sloes, the fruit of the blackthorn bush is the tiny, bitter fruit that gives sloe gin its glorious garnet hue. It is what brings the deep damson flavour to what has long been my go-to frosty-night tipple.
Anyone who layered the purple-black fruits with sugar and gin in November (I use less sugar than I used to – 900g of sloes to 500g of caster sugar and 1.5 litres of gin) will probably find it ready about now. Those who didn’t may like to treat themselves to one of the commercial brands that have appeared in recent years to cope with its new role as a co*cktail ingredient. Try a splash in your next negroni.
Finding sloes is easy in the countryside. They line many of our lanes. You’ll find them thick with a snowfall of white blossom in spring, and ready for picking at the end of the year.
Tradition likes a sloe that has seen a morning frost or two, though it is not essential. What is important is that we don’t try to eat them, no matter how much they resemble a damson. Sloe crumble will leave the family reeling in horror, which only endorses my view that this fruit evolved purely for turning into gin.
Once you’ve found your sloes, making the drink is straightforward. You prick the fruit all over with a pin, an endless, mesmerising task which is either infuriating or calming depending on your sensibilities. A more modern suggestion is to freeze the fruit in a ziplock bag then bash it with a rolling pin until the fruit splits a little.
Punctured, the fruit is then dropped into bottles with what seems like a frightening amount of sugar, then topped up with gin. The sugar, which is needed to soften the exceptional bitterness of the sloes, will slowly dissolve, and regular turning of the bottles will help the colour and flavour permeate the spirit. Six to eight weeks later, when you have almost forgotten its existence, you will find a drink of glorious colour – the shade of a papal robe – and nicely balanced between bitter and sweet.
Spirits, to my taste, are more appropriate in a glass than on a plate. Yet a brandy-fuelled fruitcake has a certain majesty. I might draw the line at the notion of a tot in my porridge of a weekday morning, but this is one spirit I am happy to bring into the kitchen.
Pheasant with sloe gin and pears
Just time enough to get one last pheasant diner in before the end of the season.
Remove any stray feathers from the birds then place them in a roasting tin – close, but not touching. You want to give them the opportunity to roast evenly.
Peel and cut the onion into segments then stuff inside the birds. Spread the butter over their skin, season with salt and pepper then add the thyme, poking a few sprigs inside.
Peel and quarter the pears, add to the tin and roast for 20 minutes. Baste with the melted butter and lower the heat to 200C for 20-25 minutes.
The pheasants should be golden and firm to the touch. It is good if they are a little pink inside. Remove from the oven and set somewhere warm.
Place the roasting tin over a moderate heat, pour in the stock and sloe gin, season with salt and pepper, then bring to the boil. Stir, scraping at any flavoursome roasting bits stuck to the tin, check the seasoning, then pour into a warm jug and serve with the pheasant and pears.
Apples in sloe gin syrup
Offer cream, but it will intrude on the quiet purity of the dessert.
Serves 3 caster sugar 200g water 400ml apples 6, small and sweet tangerine 1 cinnamon half a stick coriander seeds 10 red or blackcurrant jelly 3 tbsp sloe gin 150ml
Put the caster sugar in a saucepan, pour in the water and bring to the boil. Peel the apples, but leave them whole. If they are more medium than small, then halve and core them, too.
Lower the apples into the boiling syrup, then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer. Peel three wide strips of zest from the tangerine, then drop that into the syrup with the cinnamon stick and coriander seeds.
Stir in the fruit jelly then add the sloe gin and cook for 15-30 minutes, depending on the apple size, until tender. Watch the apples carefully – they go from tender to fluffy collapse in the blink of an eye. Serve warm.
Rhubarb with sloe gin
I have run this idea past you before, but it’s worth repeating, what with all the rhubarb around right now.
Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 4. Put the fruit in an ovenproof dish, cutting it in half or into thick pieces no bigger than will comfortably sit in a spoon. Scatter the sugar over evenly, then pour in the sloe gin and water. Place the dish in the oven, covered with a lid or foil, and bake for 40 minutes or so (much will depend on the type of fruit you are using), until the fruit is starting to burst. Remove from the oven and cool a little – it’s best eaten warm rather than hot, though it’s also very good chilled.
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Whether it's added to a stock reduction, used to sweeten a tagine or flavour a crumble or simply drizzled over ice cream for a quick dessert, a bottle of sloe gin in the kitchen never goes amiss.
Beyond game birds, other game meat also works just as well for a sloe gin and food pairing. Robert Mitchell, Executive Chef at Drake & Morgan, says “Sloe gin goes really well with something hearty like venison and roast winter vegetables – think butternut squash, Jerusalem artichokes and mushrooms.
There are many ways to drink Sloe Gin, starting with the classic and most traditional way. Sip it neat. While many will tell you this is not the most delicious way of drinking it, if you enjoy it, that's all that counts. While, as previously discussed, Sloe Gin is technically not a gin, it does go very well with tonic.
Freeze overnight or until you're ready to make the gin. Put frozen sloes into sterilised jar or empty gin bottles. Add gin then the sugar directly onto frozen sloes. Their skins will split which means you can avoid the laborious pricking of each individual sloe berry.
Twist the jar 180 degrees every other day for two to three months. (After three months, make sure you remove the sloes from the jar before storing, or it will become too strong.)
Don't throw away gin-soaked sloe berries once your gin has finished infusing. Instead, turn leftover sloes into moreish chocolates. Remove any remaining pips from your berries, lay them in a single layer on a lined baking sheet and dust with cinnamon and orange zest.
Sloe gin is deliciously sweet with rich notes of plum and red berries. Combining this fruity sweetness with the bitter notes found in Fever-Tree Lemon Tonic Water makes for a perfectly balanced and refreshing long drink.
Does Sloe gin need to be refrigerated? Nope, it's high enough in alcohol that it doesn't need to be refrigerated. The general rule of thumb—if a liqueur is less than 15% in alcohol or has a base of wine (like vermouth) it should be refrigerated.
Once your gin bottle is open, the oxidisation process starts. Basically, the gin's flavour will change (and get slightly worse) very gradually over time. It's preferable to use up an opened bottle of gin within a year. Although it won't go off, after a year or more opened gin won't taste particularly nice.
Traditional gin is distilled with juniper berries and other botanicals, Sloe Gin is a liqueur made by infusing gin with sloe berries and sugar. This results in a sweeter, fruitier flavour profile and a lower alcohol content for Sloe Gin compared to the more botanical and higher-alcohol traditional gin.
Let's be clear: while it may seem like gin by any other name, sloe gin is technically a liqueur. The berry-pink drink is born a regular gin, but the booze is then steeped with sugar and sloe (a rouge berry from the Blackthorn plant) to sweeten the spirit and lower the proof to as low as 15%.
Sugar saturates the gin, creating an osmotic pressure barrier that does not allow the gin to extract the natural fruit sugars. To make the best sloe gin, add no sugar at the start. Instead, after three months add simple syrup to taste.
Traditionally, sloe gin is drunk neat, over ice (on the rocks) or mixed into warm co*cktails like a Hot Toddy - scroll down to find our mouthwatering Mulled Sloe Gin Hot Toddy recipe. However, sloe gin can go with many different mixers.
Sloe gin is traditionally sipped neat or as a hot toddy co*cktail according to Joanne, but it works lovely chilled too. 'I would suggest using ice if drinking in cold co*cktails such as a sloe gin and ginger ale,' Joanne recommends. 'Or just add a shot to a chilled glass of Prosecco.
Don't forget to sterilise your jars beforehand. You can learn how to do so here or check the video in the tips below. Harvest sloe berries in autumn and make sloe gin that will be ready come Christmastime. It's the perfect festive tipple to enjoy yourself or give as a gift.
1. SLOE GIN & LEMON TONIC. We all know that making a perfect G&T is an essential summertime skill, but have you considered a Sloe Gin & Lemon Tonic? Fruit-forward but still just as spritzy and refreshing as the original, it's one of our favourite sloe gin co*cktails for summer.
Although your sloe gin will be ready to drink if you make it now, it will improve enormously with time, and will be at its best a couple of years from now. Some sloe gin experts age theirs for up to 15 years or even longer.
Each sloe berry is pricked and then added to a wide necked jar alongside sugar and gin. The jar is then sealed, mixed together and stored in a cool, dark place. The jar is turned regularly until three months have passed and after this time the gin starts to show a deep ruby red colour.
One of sloe gin's classic applications is in a highly bubbly, blush-toned fizz alongside lemon juice, sugar, egg white, and a top-up of soda. "I enjoy a sloe gin fizz and a couple of other gin classics now and again, but now I enjoy utilizing sloe gin as a modifier in more complex co*cktails," says O'Connor.
Traditional gin is distilled with juniper berries and other botanicals, Sloe Gin is a liqueur made by infusing gin with sloe berries and sugar. This results in a sweeter, fruitier flavour profile and a lower alcohol content for Sloe Gin compared to the more botanical and higher-alcohol traditional gin.
Foragers scoured hedgerows and woodlands for the small, deep-purple sloe berries, a distant cousin of the plum. These humble berries were the key ingredient in a fruity concoction perfect for sipping during winter evenings by the fire.
But as with most sloe gins, the overwhelming olfactory character is ripe, bright fruit. The palate is bright fruit once again: plum, grilled cherries, tart and sweet.Notes of ruby red grapefruit, leaning towards a touch of citrus on the finish with hints of nutmeg and sugar.
Introduction: My name is Domingo Moore, I am a attractive, gorgeous, funny, jolly, spotless, nice, fantastic person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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