Sloe Gin

[jonnyhop]

Evening all!

So for Christmas I got a 900g bag of dried out sloes and a 70cl bottle of Gin. The plan is to prick each sloe, put them in a sterilised 2l pop bottle, add the gin and 300g of brewing sugar and then shake each time I walk past. It will be stored at room temp out of sunlight. After 3 months I will take out about half the gin (filtering through my jam strainer), bottle it and drink. The rest will be left for another few months, filtered and bottled.

Can anyone see any obvious problems or improvements?

As ever the help is much appreciated.

Jonny

[oxford brewer]

Not an improvement just a suggestion that someone else put on this forum.
Once you have drained the liquid from the sloes mix the sloes with some melted chocolate(dark chocolate with a high cocoa content) spread over some greaseproof paper,chill until set then eat
Also the longer you leave the sloe gin the better it gets...next year you may want to make 3 ltrs of the stuff to ensure some lasts long enough to become vintage(3 years in my books ).

[RatboyOllie]

sounds awesome, do you add yeast or just bung it all in and leave it?

cheers

[edit1now]

You could freeze then defrost your sloes first (if they haven't already frozen on the bush) which will help to break down the cell walls in the fruit, which will make for a better extraction.

RB - you're infusing fruit in spirit - no need to ferment

[coatesg]

You could freeze then defrost your sloes first (if they haven't already frozen on the bush) which will help to break down the cell walls in the fruit, which will make for a better extraction.

Good advice - last year and the year before, the sloes were ready well before first frost so I froze them for a couple of weeks (it helps to take the edge off the bitterness in the sloes too)- this year's first frost was quite early (at least here) but I didn't bother picking any as I had a load in the freezer already from the previous harvest!

[jonnyhop]

That chocolate recipy sounds amazing! Shame about the long wait until I can make it.

Cheers for the replies - is it still worth freezing the sloes if they have been dried?

Jonny

[oxford brewer]

If the sloes are dried then there is no ned to freeze them....you may want to prick the sloes so that the flavours are carried out of the fruit easier.

[scrumpyjon]

I did a similar thing with rasins and dark rum.
Was a yummy xmas liqueur and bostin rasins to go ontop of vanilla ice cream.
Double trouble!
I love a boozy xmas infront of the fire.