Sloe Gin

This year looks as if it will be just as good for sloes as last year, and when there is a bumper crop of sloes the best thing to do with them is make sloe gin!
There are a few tricks to the perfect sloe gin, and one of the key ones is not to add too much sugar – you can always sweeten it later on but it is pretty hard to reduce the sweetness.
Ingredients

• Sloes
• Gin
• Sugar

Method
Freeze the sloes and when they are completely frozen half fill a large bottle with them. Add three or four tablespoons of sugar and fill the bottle to the top with Gin. Shake the bottle every day for the first week, and once a week for the next three months.
In four to six months you can remove the sloes and filter the Sloe Gin if you wish.
The sloes can be reused to make Slider (Sloe Cider) or Sloe flapjacks.

Sloe Gin ingredients

Sloes in bottles

Sloes with sugar added

Sloe Gin, just started