Sloe Gin – “How To Make” Recipe From The Jam Jar Shop

Recipe Ingredients

• 1 litre gin
• 600g sloes
• 270g sugar

Recipe Equipment

• Swing Top Glass bottles
•  Le Parfait jars
• Jam Funnel
• Muslin cloth
• Large preserving pan
• Wooden spoon

HOW TO MAKE SLOE GIN

There is a lot of debate of exactly when to harvest your sloes, and how to prepare them. Generally, October is a good month. Theoretically you should wait until after the first frost, but if you wait too long, someone else might get them!
Some recipes have you pricking each sloe with a needle but this is much too tedious for me. I throw them into the freezer for a few days. This simulates what would happen in a frost and also starts to break down the fruit so the juices will come out without pricking them. 

1. Now you will need some wide-mouth jars. Le Parfait jars work perfectly.
2. Two 1000ml jars will hold your sloe gin while it’s steeping.
3. Put 500ml gin, 300g sloes, and 135g sugar into each jar, and close them.
4. The sugar won’t dissolve at first. Shake it every day until it’s dissolved, and then shake it every now and then when you remember to.
5. At about Christmas time it will be good enough.
6. The best way to separate the sloes from the sloe gin is to use a jelly bag.
7. Put the sloe gin into swing top bottles, it looks fantastic (and makes a great gift).

Top Tip: Don’t throw away the sloes that you pulled out of your sloe gin. You can make some fantastic chocolates out of them. First remove the stones from them. This is tedious, as they are small! Do it while watching TV or listening to your favourite radio station. Now weigh the sloes, then measure out an equal amount of chocolate. I like dark chocolate but you can use what you like. Melt the chocolate. I find that it’s best to heat up the stoned sloes a bit before adding them to the melted chocolate, as the chocolate hardens almost immediately if you don’t. Then scoop out spoonfuls of the sloe and chocolate mixture into mini muffin cases, put in fridge, and let cool off. 

 

Some do's and don'ts

Do store the bottles on their sides

Do store in a cool environment 

Do store away from children, pets, hot cars