Me, well I finished organising a little get together for our high school class of 1973 and yes, before most of you were born
Just sent the invite by email for this our 42nd gathering designed to keep in touch and ready for the 45th and 50th reunion parties
Two litres of sloe gin on the cook for 2019. One litre of Tanqueray Gin No 10 and another of Bombay Sapphire.
Make it every year but only ever used cheap gin, should find out in 2019 if it's worth the extra money. That said the bottle i've just tested from 2012 is cracking and that was shit gin. The slow vodka i used the gin soaked sloes to make has just turned into some type of super alcohol....
Dom, we make a new batch of sloe gin every year (just made one from a recent picking a couple of weeks ago), decent gin makes all the difference.
I was on a food shoot a couple of years ago, and the PR for a drinks company I forgot informed me during a sloe gin discussion that most cheap gin is actually just flavoured vodka. Tesco, Sainsbury's, etc all do it. A fucking revelation, let me tell you.
Shiiittt! still, takes OK so far. was going to drop a few blackberries in for flavour but bottled out. Wise men say you're meant to pick after the first frost, but as we're not seeing that for a few months yet i waited until they were just about to go past ripe, freeze then and stick a pin in every one.
Yeah, first frost is a myth, don't worry about pinning them if you are freezing them, the freezing and then dropping them into the gin breaks them up anyway
We add something new every year to the batch. Blackberries are good, but better with vodka. We've done star anise, which was nice, but we made it a bit too strong, and vanilla was lovely.
My partner's dad is a sloe gin nut, and he's got a batch from 1982 that he pulls out every christmas. Shit's bright orange and thick like a syrup. Amazing, though.
We've got our Sloe gin on the go too, used Lidl's finest own brand, can't say I've ever been tempted to use finer stuff but I guess it'd be worth a taste test side by side, might make a bit more with the leftover frozen berries.
Still have a bottle of plum vodka from last year but that's it since we moved house and no longer have a plum orchard. That was some good shit.
Last edited by phantasmagoria on Mon Oct 12, 2015 7:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
syp0s wrote:Yeah, first frost is a myth, don't worry about pinning them if you are freezing them, the freezing and then dropping them into the gin breaks them up anyway
Sure about the first frost? Some plants develop sugar as a defense against freezing since it lowers the freezing point a bit and prevents cellular rupture from ice crystals forming. Carrots do this. Never heard of berries doing it but it seems plausible.
Sloe gin? Is this some sort of obscure English thing i've not heard about before? I gather the idea is to buy a bottle of cheap alcohol and make it more interesting with fruit?
Ryoki wrote:Sloe gin? Is this some sort of obscure English thing i've not heard about before? I gather the idea is to buy a bottle of cheap alcohol and make it more interesting with fruit?
Festive drink for Christmas that can get you wasted.
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