Winter Sloe Gin, Part 1
Raise your hand if you have been in a pub in London in the middle of winter and ordered a winter sloe gin.
Raise your hand if you were not in London, nor was it winter, but you had the pleasure of trying out some sloe gin.
If you have or even if you have not tried some sloe gin, you are in for a wonderous treat!
To start, people who know me, know I like to drink (and make) gin. So adding some sort of complimentary dried (or fresh) fruit to it is only a bonus to the whole process.
Wait, what is a sloe (slow?) gin?
Gin that is infused with sloe berries, also known as blackthorn berries.
Where can I find these…sloes?
Although the berries seem to be native to Europe and other places that are not North America, it was difficult for me to find fresh berries in the States but I did find some dried berries from a seller on Etsy who harvests them in November/October in the UK.
So then what?
Then the fun part…making the infused gin!
I first rehydrated 400g of sloe berries in some warm water for a few hours. I knew they were ready when I could easily squash the berries - essential to the infusion process. I froze the 50g of left over sloes I had in anticipation of making a jam of some sort (cross your fingers).
I bought a 750ml bottle of not-so-bad-quality gin, so think anything above a level or two of Seagrams
I then filled two quart size mason jars with 200g of rehydrated sloe berries and lightly muddled them. I chose muddling because the lazy part of me was not going to sit and prick open each sloe prior to infusion. I know I will probably have to cheese cloth strain it later to remove any skins.
Filled both mason jars with 375ml of gin. Capped them and stored them in a dark cabinet under my sink, which I shake once a week
When do we drink it?!
Recommended time is 3 months. I am going to open up a jar after two months of infusion time, blend it with some simple syrup and see what the results are (stay tuned for part 2!).
There have been variations of infusing the gin with sugar and some of the rehydrated water but I opted to not do that based on my own research and experience with alcohol infusions.