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Slow gin

divebuddy

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After successfully foraging a good quantity of sloes at the Summer meet I have the sloe gin under way.
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One question. I've made sloe gin for quite some time now ( the good lady wife is now into her gin and has a range of gins on the go , redcurrant , blackberry and apple with plans for more) and i've always added some almond essence at the end of the process probably because it was part of the original recipe i used. I feel it gives the gin "something extra" but other recipes omit the almond essence.
Are you an essence adder or an essence omitter?
 
I follow my great aunt's recipe. Half pound of sloes, 4 ounces sugar and a bottle of gin. No other ingredients. Slice each sloe and add gin and sugar in the bottle. Shake twice a day for a week and leave a further three weeks then strain and bottle. I once met a chap who said you should pierce each sloe four times with a silver needle. Never followed his advice! Sloe vodka and sloe Bacardi are other things I can recommend.
 
I do it ever so slightly differently as I cut each sloe and put them all into the dry sugar which draws out the juice before adding the gin. we also do a mean rumtopf with rum, golden granulated sugar a mixture of soft fruits.
While we're on the subject of gin I can really reccomend a little tipple called "bee's knees" made with London gin, honey (as much as you can get to dissolve) and lemon juice
 
A tip I was taught years ago was to freeze the sloes before making the sloe gin and then there is no need to cut or pierce them (the traditional method was to leave them until after the first frost to “blett” for a similar effect) :)
 
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