Sloe Gin

Known as mothers ruin, gin sure can de ruffle the feathers after a hard day, adding sloes to the gin can add great flavour and is pretty simple to do and makes a lovely drink for Christmas.

We started making our sloe gin back in September as we now are lucky to have a sloe bush or two in the meadow.  We wait till the fruit looks good and plump which is normally around the first frost but with the climate change and it being warmer you can always put these in the freezer instead.

You can prick these and pop them into a bottle of gin and turn every now and then and wait till Christmas to drink it. 

However we start by pricking and popping them in a jar and leaving for a few weeks and then we use or cocktail muddler crush the berries so they are all macerated which gives loads more flavour, a few days before Christmas this is passed through muslin into sterile bottles ready for drinking. 

I have added a second picture below to compare to the top picture so you can see the colour change and only imaging the flavour development.  The top picture is taken 2 weeks of making and only pricking where as the below is muddled and left just before Christmas.

Sloe time in the meadow

We have had our first frost and we are lucky to have our own sloes growing in the meadow so no more tromping round the footpaths hunting for sloes, dragging children through nettles and thistles.   Ella is getting to an age (16 months) where she is getting to an age where she loves to help, she watches and copies and as you can see very insistent to carry the basket and pick the berries.

After the girls helped pick the sloe's we spent time pricking them before added them to our yearly few bottles of gin, a bit of mothers ruin to help sooth the day for mum and dad when the kids finally go to bed.  I know your supposed to wait till Christmas to let them infuse but hey make a few extra bottles mean we can start drinking it a bit earlier Cheers!!

A few years back we also made some slow wine which you can find out how to do below