Drink Bill Knott
TAKE THE SLOE ROAD
Brambles are early this year.
At least, that’s how it appeared in mid-september, as I ambled among the hedgerows of Cornwall. Many were already past their best, while the sloes on the blackthorn bushes – not usually ripe until late October – were plumply purple and shiny.
Much though I love the countryside in autumn, I have an ulterior motive: both brambles and sloes, combined with gin and sugar, make terrific winter tipples. Sloe gin is the classic, a marriage of two inedibly astringent berries, transformed by sugar and alcohol into a deliciously fruity, heady liqueur.
Thankfully, the disobligingly spiky juniper does not need picking, its distinctive aroma already distilled into the spirit, but sloes ( Prunus spinosa, which offers a clue) are nearly as fiercely protected by thorns. One of these spines was traditionally used to prick each berry, releasing its juices into the gin, but it is much easier simply to freeze the fruits: when defrosted, the skins burst, achieving the same effect.
The method is very simple. Take 500g of frozen sloes (or damsons, if you have a glut), layer them in a sterilised two-litre preserving jar (Kilner or similar) with 250g caster sugar; then top up with a litre of gin. Store it somewhere dark and cool, giving it a shake every day until the sugar has dissolved, then every week or so for two or three months: longer, if you can be patient. Then strain through a muslinlined funnel into bottles and leave for at least another few weeks before opening.
The lengthier the maceration, the more the bitter almond flavour of the stones will leach into the gin. Add some almond essence as a short cut, if you like. The leftover sloes are usually discarded, although ingenious recipes for jellies and chutneys exist. There is also ‘slider’ – sloe cider – made by infusing the gin-soaked berries in still cider.
Northamptonshire-based cider-maker Saxby’s even makes a commercial version (18% ABV, £29.99, ciderlicious.co.uk).
Bramble gin is quicker to mature. The fruits turn mushy much more easily and are less astringent; so they need less sugar. 500g of brambles, 200g of caster sugar and a litre of gin, a fortnight in the jar and another month or two in bottle will do the trick. Both sloe gin and bramble gin can be drunk chilled on their own as a digestif, or over crushed ice, or with tonic. An extra squeeze of lemon helps balance the sweetness.
I must confess, however, that my foraging this year has taken me only as far as my local Lidl, where I found Finton’s London Dry Gin (£9.99 for 70cl) and frozen blackberries (£1.99 for 600g).
The fruits of my (minimal) labours are now strained and bottled, awaiting Christmas house guests, whom I shall regale with tall tales of scratched flesh amid Cornish hedgerows. The truth will remain my Lidl secret.