I have discovered sloes in our garden hedge, which I am very excited about as I had forgotten I'd planted blackthorn as part of the native hedge mix put in 5 years ago. I shall have to make some sloe gin.

Until a few weeks ago the stretch of hedge was inaccessible, but as part of landscaping the garden to create a lawn I reached it and gave it a well needed trim. Amongst the hawthorn and hazel I found six bushes of the small purple berries, which were confirmed as sloes by a experienced gin maker who happened to be visiting at the time.

I am conscious I maybe picked the sloes a bit early, but I've now sown a lawn in front of the bushes and shouldn't walk on it for several months.

I've done a bit of research into the best way to make sloe gin and it seems to be one of those recipes that varies from region to region and person to person. Is it best to pick after the first frost or has this now changed due to global warming? Do you prick the berries with  a thorn from the bush, a silver fork, or just hit them with a rolling pin? Do you add freeze the berries first, add almond essence,whole almonds or cinnamon?

There are many excellent sites discussing these issues, the most helpful were at:

The Cottage Smallholder

The sloe.biz forums

The recipe I used was adapted from the sloe.biz forums.

  See here for the sloe gin recipe in more detail.

Recipe Costs

£1.90 340g sloes (equivalent cost from ebay, mine were free)
£ 7.99 70cl gin (from aldi)
£0.12 130g granulated sugar
£10.01 Total (or £8.11 if you pick the sloes yourself)
£14.03 per litre of sloe gin - 63% the equivalent cost at tesco (£11.58 with picking your own sloes - half the equivalent cost at tesco )

Here are the sloes after I'd frozen them overnight, defrosted them and pricked them all with a needle, they were quite squishy at this stage so some got squashed.

I used a wide necked 2 litre kilner jar, the same as used for rhubarb schnapps, this makes it very easy to get the ingredients in and mixed up. Advice on how much sugar varies, but several sources recommend tasting the gin after a few months and adding more sugar if necessary.

I used 70cl of Aldi's best quality gin, which I'm sure won't be enough when it come to Christmas, but I'd picked all the berries from my young bushes. I shall have to go out and see if I can find any larger bushes nearby.

Here's the colour of the mixture after 12 hours, already showing the characteristic deep purple starting to develop. I've put the jar on the kitchen windowsill and will shake it every time I do the washing up, once the sugar is dissolved it will go under the stairs until Christmas.

Recipe Timings

20 mins preparation
5 mins mixing
2 - 3 months waiting

Taste Test

Marvellous, just right for sipping in front of the fire after a winter walk. The colour after 3 months is incredibly deep which adds a festive feel. I wouldn't change the amount of sugar used, although of course this may vary with how tart the berries were to begin with.