Sloe Gin

On a walk this weekend I noticed the Blackthorn bushes from which we picked lots of sloes to make sloe gin are looking heavy with fruit, which bodes well for production of this king of drinks in the autumn.

In preparation for that time (around September/October - after the first frost if you can wait that long, I don't think we did. I seem to remember picking them when they looked ripe), here is the recipe we followed which worked very nicely. We picked our sloes, froze them for a while, then defrosted them and added them to gin with some sugar in the amounts that the recipe suggests. Needless to say it was very much worth it - so get looking for those sloes in readiness!