I've been exploring!

[spamel]

Cheers Red, I reckon those are the ones! I think the leaf was slightly narrower, but not much in it. Maybe a slight variation, or younger leaves perhaps. I may use the demijohns, it would be easy to get the sloes out at the end. Will I need to airlock it though? It's not fermenting, so I can just bung it can't I?

 

[British Red]

Eric, yep and yep

Spam, I don't like to airlock because, although it shouldn't rement due to the high alcohol content inhibiting the yeast, some gas can be given off. A good tight wad of cotton wool lets gas out and keeps the insects out too. Keep it in the dark mind or the sunlight bleaches the colour. I just wrap the demijohn in brown paper.

Don't worry about leaf shape - a lot are narrower and more spear shaped. They should be alternate though (not in pairs), bright green and lightly serrated. I'm pretty confident they will be sloes though

Red

 

[Toddy]

I used to sit and ***** over every sloe before I popped it into the bottle, these days I just run a handful at a time over the prickly side of a grater.

I loosely fill the bottle half full, then pour in sugar until it *just* covers the fruit, not shaken down hard or the like. Then fill the bottle to just below the bottom of the neck with gin, whisky, vodka, bung firmly and shake vigorously. I generally leave it sitting beside the sink, that way it gets shoogled everytime I'm there. When I get fed up looking at it, the bottle goes into the back of the pantry until I remember it's there (generally just before Christmas when I'm trying to find room to stash stuff ) and I pull it out and strain into a clean bottle and label and date.
Not terribly scientific, but I don't think I've had a bad batch yet If done in late August, early September, the stuff is ready to drink by the New Year....just. It's better left longer, about February is good and from then on it just seems to get more mellow.

I found a bag of frozen sloes at the bottom of the freezer early one summer, I tried the sloe gin with them and though it worked it was a bit swersh so I spiced it and left it until the Winter and it was surprisingly good

Everybody's sloe gin tastes different; no bad thing, and a pleasant way to spend an hour or two testing them. It's a sipping drink, terribly civilised

atb,
Toddy

 

[spamel]

Here are the local sloes, although they don't look very nice at the moment. The ones growing in the shade seem to look a lot nicer, although they are all very tough right now.

I went back up there today and took my two eldest. They seemed to really enjoy it, they had a go at taking some pictures, we made a brew, cleared some of the overgrown paths with the secateurs and generally had a good laugh. We were mobbed by a group of dogs and their owner after about five minutes of climbing up the hill to the grassland, so we all got covered in mud! A few pics.

What is this big red and black bug?

Some sort of butterfly, loads of them up there!

Jo'anne stalking the butterflys!

"Looking through the fence"


I really enjoyed the trip, there are some more pics, but I was just trying things out whilst trying to also spend some time with the kids. It was a great few hours.

 

[BorderReiver]

I really don't like the exhausted sloes; they always taste kind of mealy to me , but other folks enthuse about them, even adding them to baking and ice cream. I must be missing something My compost heap seems to like them though

cheers,
Toddy

Making sweeties by covering them in melted chocolate works a treat.

I like them like that anyway.