Europe and the US have their own tastes. Some alcoholic drinks, very popular in the West, have not been able to storm the CIS market, where from great-grandfather to grandfather, and from grandfather to son (and so on) an inexplicable love for vodka, beer and brandy is transmitted 3 stars from the Mytishchi appellation . We are trying to acquaint readers with more refined drinks and, moreover, teach these drinks to cook. This time we are going to foggy Albion, where instead of vodka the working class drinks gin, and in refined societies they prefer to drink sloe gin – gin on the turn.
In the Western media, this drink is given a lot of attention, and real battles are growing on culinary blogs, the reason for which is the recipe for this very sloe gin.
Remarkably, the drink itself is very simple and consists of only three ingredients: gin, blackthorn and sugar. Proportions and technologies may differ, but it’s just gin, turn and sugar. And to make a real sloe gin, you don’t have to be a big dick in home brewing or a PhD in molecular chemistry. It is enough to have a couple of hundred rubles for the most ordinary gin, a little turn and a lot of patience.
Sloe gin is so popular in Europe that Gordon’s had to bend over backwards and release their own version of the liqueur. Despite its history…
The drink arose quite recently (by the standards of alcohol history). Until the beginning of the 20th century, it was generally referred to disparagingly. For example, in one of the British poems of 1717, a similar drink is described as “a mixture of sugar, sloes and garbage from grocery stores” (gin was then very disliked). In 1838, a mixture of gin and sloe juice was described more scathingly: “a mixture that the inhabitants of London drink only in the port” (or thereabouts, perhaps meaning that it is fit for port vagrants to drink this rubbish). But today many people make sloe gin and are proud of it.
sloe gin recipe
For this liquor, it is best to take a wild turn – it is small, tart and is best revealed in gin. It is desirable to collect it in late autumn after the first frosts, when the fruits contain the maximum amount of sugar and the bitterness goes away. From some harvests, if the blackthorn is sweet enough, sloe gin can be made without sugar.
As for the alcohol base, there is only gin. It does not have to be of high quality, but it must be a gin, and not its “analogues”, all from the same Mytishchi appellation. There is, for example, a hack called “Heather” – it, whatever it really is, does not fit.
Get a Beefeater or Gordon’s. If it rings in your pocket, but does not crunch, you can pay attention to less popular brands, there are many of them, but they may not be so strong – it is preferable to take a gin with a strength of more than 43%. You can dilute a little with vodka, but not more than a quarter.
Regular sugar will do. You can, of course, take cane, but this will not affect the taste in any way and you need to take more of it. The recipe itself is extremely simple, but you can customize the proportions for yourself. I brought the most optimal.
- 500 grams of ripe wild blackthorn
- 250 gram of granulated sugar
- 1 liter good strong gin
Rinse the turn and sort it thoroughly, getting rid of spoiled berries. Pierce each fruit with a fork or toothpick to the very bone. If you use wild turn, then you will need to put it in the freezer for a couple of hours, and then defrost it – they say this procedure improves the taste of the fruit. At a minimum, freezing will break down the fibers and the juice will be better extracted.
Now the berries need to be put in a jar of a suitable volume, add sugar and pour it all with gin. Seal tightly and mix vigorously. Put in a cool dark place to infuse for 3 months.
We advise you to look at the recipe for blackthorn wine – an amazing drink made from free raw materials.
Also try making tinctures and liqueurs from blackthorn, the recipes of which are presented in this and in this article, respectively.
For the first couple of weeks, the infusion should be mixed well daily so that the sugar dissolves completely and draws out the sloe juice faster. Then you can mix less often, once a week. After three months, the finished liquor can be drained. It will be cloudy and very difficult to filter due to the slimy flesh of the blackthorn. You can try to filter through a piece of muslin, or you can just defend the drink and then carefully drain it from the sediment.
Store sloe gin in a dark cabinet, the longer the better. Empirically, it was found that the optimal aging period is 6 years – the liquor is very balanced and even. But you can limit yourself to a year, although the drink will be a bit harsh.
Many advise to even out the taste with cinnamon or cloves. I think a pinch of one or the other would not be superfluous. Spices can be added not immediately, but three to four days before the end of the infusion. I also recommend trying to make sugar-free sloe gin. It will turn out to be a purely masculine drink, especially if real, strong London gin was used.
For the weaker sex, the liquor can be slightly diluted with clean water. In Europe, the strength of this wonderful drink, by law, should not be lower than 25%. By the way, do not rush to throw away the berries left after making the drink. In the article with recipes for sloe liqueurs, there are as many as three options for using this goodness (a small spoiler: berries can be poured with sherry, port wine or dark chocolate). In general, try!