Preserving
Sloe Gin
A bottle of gin, a bag of frost-kissed sloes and three months of patience at the back of the cupboard.
20 October 2026 4 min read Serves 12
Foraging notes
Sloes, the blue-black fruit of the blackthorn, best after the first frost has softened them.
Raw sloes are mouth-puckeringly dry, but they give gin a deep plum colour and a soft almond edge.
A night in the freezer splits the skins the way frost does, so the juice flows without pricking every fruit.
Best months
Ingredients
- 500g sloes
- 1L plain gin
- 250g caster sugar
- A large sterilised jar
Method
Prep the fruit
Freeze the sloes overnight, then give the bag a good bash so the skins crack open.
Combine
Tip the sloes, gin and sugar into the jar, seal and shake until the sugar dissolves.
Wait it out
Store somewhere dark and cool for at least three months, shaking the jar now and then. It just gets better.
Strain and bottle
Strain through muslin into bottles. Best sipped slowly on a cold evening.
Kitchen tip: Keep the boozy sloes after straining: they are superb under a lid of dark chocolate.
