Description
The sloe berry is the fruit of the blackthorn, a thorny bush that grows locally in Dumfriesshire. We hand pick our local sloes in the Autumn.
Sloes are most commonly used as the main ingredient of sloe gin. When sloe gin is made at this time of year it is traditionally ready for Christmas.
There are many different recipes for sloe gin, but the one that they are all basically derived from is –
500g Sloes (pricked) , 500g White Sugar, 1 litre bottle of gin.
Put the pricked sloes in a kilner jar or similar and add the sugar and the gin.
Just keep turning the jar daily to dissolve the sugar and disturb the sloes. After a few days the gin will take on a purple hue which will increase with time until it’s a deep crimson colour.
Some people like to add a couple of cinnamon sticks, cloves or even ginger to the mix but I like it just as it is.
After approximately 12 weeks drain the gin out of the mixture and bottle up your home made sloe gin.
You can also de-stone the used sloes and mix them with melted chocolate to make a new bar of unbelievably delicious sloe gin chocolate.
We freeze the sloes in 500g packs and as the sloes have been frozen it saves you the painstaking task of pricking them!
