The Lemon Fool

Very satisfactory afternoon collecting over 5 kilos of sloes to make sloe gin. Even better, as we were in Chester this morning we called at Aldi for some cheap gin £14.41 a litre as opposed to £18+ in Wales so a saving of £24.

R6

Rhyd6 wrote:Very satisfactory afternoon collecting over 5 kilos of sloes to make sloe gin. Even better, as we were in Chester this morning we called at Aldi for some cheap gin £14.41 a litre as opposed to £18+ in Wales so a saving of £24.

R6

Gordon Bennet. How much gin do you make with 5kg of berries? And who drinks that much sloe gin. There should be no detectable hint of jealousy in this post.

Funnily enough Genou not me I to have the occasional one but in the main I use it as Christmas and birthday presents, I also make sure that I keep a supply of small prosecco bottles just to give out now and again to someone who has done me a favour or been helpful and of course I always use some of these small bottles on the bottle stall at our annual fund raiser for the Community Centre. I have four one gallon whisky bottles given to me years ago by our local publican and I use these for the brew.
What I find annoying is that I have to cart over the border into England because the numpties in Cardiff placed a tarriff of 50p per unit of alcohol on booze sold in Wales. When I told a couple of friends that I was popping into Aldi in Chester they asked if I would get some gin for them to so in fact I purchased 7 bottles. The chap behind us in the queue asked if he could come to the party. People on facebook often ask people if anyone is doing a booze run into England so no doubt the English supermarkets do well out of the Welsh tipplers.
Cheers
R6

Rhyd6 wrote:Funnily enough Genou not me I to have the occasional one but in the main I use it as Christmas and birthday presents, I also make sure that I keep a supply of small prosecco bottles just to give out now and again to someone who has done me a favour or been helpful and of course I always use some of these small bottles on the bottle stall at our annual fund raiser for the Community Centre.
R6

Sloe gin for the ritual gifts, prosecco for doing you a favour?

Must remember never to do you a favour. Unless persuading you to switch those around counts as a favour?

Sorry Uncle Ebenezer, didn't make myself clear - I keep a supply of empty small prosecco bottles to fill with sloe gin as gifts Mind you a drop of sloe gin in a glass of prosecco gives it a lift.
Cheers

R6

Being consumers of gin and tonic, it's handy to have relatives who give us either gin, sloe or other fruit gin at Christmas. Symbiosis: they present it, we gratefully consume it.


Arb.

Sounds great, we used to make it too from hedgerow sloes and discounters gin. A tip if I might? After the gin has infused long enough (IDR - perhaps 3-4 months or so?) strain it off and rebottle it. BUT do not discard the 'ginny sloes'! Instead do a parallel of your original, buy discount shop sherry and reinfuse the sloes again. Treat the same*, lay down, and turn occasionally etc. = Turbo-pimped sherry, lovely in it's own right but also makes for a great trifle.

* I forget whether you need to add sugar again, if interested look for a recipe online.

Never made sloe gin.
But in the cellar we have three demijohns on the go with this year's bumper crop of our damsons. Gin and vodka.
In the past have made ditto with blackberries.

The best part is that after the bottling, one can eat the sozzled damsons/blackberries as a dessert, they keep for weeks in the fridge and are absolutely yum with cream or ice cream or yoghurt. Cover them in the fridge to prevent drying out.

Recipe for damson gin or vodka:
Damsons 2.25lb (stones in)
Vodka or gin or a mixture 3 litres
White sugar 31oz.

The sugar is 'to taste' and you can add some of it at bottling time, to adjust.

Bottled after at least 3 months. Typical yield 3.75 litres so next year I expect to bottle about 10 litres from our three demis.

V8

88V8 wrote:The best part is that after the bottling, one can eat the sozzled damsons/blackberries as a dessert, they keep for weeks in the fridge and are absolutely yum with cream or ice cream or yoghurt. Cover them in the fridge to prevent drying out.
V8

mmmm, you're making me hungry.

Those fruits will do nicely in a much wider range of desserts. Like a mousse or fool, or like a flan or trifle. Not that I'd argue with your own suggestions, either!

UncleEbenezer wrote:

88V8 wrote:The best part is that after the bottling, one can eat the sozzled damsons/blackberries as a dessert, they keep for weeks in the fridge and are absolutely yum with cream or ice cream or yoghurt. Cover them in the fridge to prevent drying out.
V8

mmmm, you're making me hungry.

Those fruits will do nicely in a much wider range of desserts. Like a mousse or fool, or like a flan or trifle.

Yes, they will.
Blackberries are more versatile though, being as they are without stones.
Your dentist will love you if you add damsons to trifle

V8

A couple of years ago I made damson gin. I took out the alcoholic fruit, stoned it (a bit of a faff I admit) and then dipped them in melted dark chocolate. Very nice! The chocolate seemed to go soft after a while, probably because I didn't temper it properly or something, so it was necessary to eat them soon for best results.

88V8 wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:

88V8 wrote:The best part is that after the bottling, one can eat the sozzled damsons/blackberries as a dessert, they keep for weeks in the fridge and are absolutely yum with cream or ice cream or yoghurt. Cover them in the fridge to prevent drying out.
V8

mmmm, you're making me hungry.

Those fruits will do nicely in a much wider range of desserts. Like a mousse or fool, or like a flan or trifle.

Yes, they will.
Blackberries are more versatile though, being as they are without stones.
Your dentist will love you if you add damsons to trifle

V8

Up to a point, Lord Copper.

Damsons - like any other fruit - can be stoned. Whereas blackberries can't[1] be freed of the component that turns to a nasty grit if liquidised, and are therefore unsuitable for, say, a fool.

[1] Unless someone knows better?

UncleEbenezer wrote:Whereas blackberries can't[1] be freed of the component that turns to a nasty grit if liquidised, and are therefore unsuitable for, say, a fool.

[1] Unless someone knows better?

I don't know for certain, but I would be surprised if pushing them through a proper chinois ( with no prior attempt to liquidise ) did not achieve what you are after.

I can thoroughly recommend rhubarb gin too, have also made blackcurrant, damson and marmalade. Do NOT try elderberry, what a disaster, luckily it was rescued by adding a bottle of cassis which when turned into a long drink with lemonade or tonic water was very palatable. I'd also recommend making a small amount if you're going to experiment with fruit you've never tried before, if you have a glut of fruit you can always freeze it and if your experiment turns out OK you can then make larger quantities.

Cheers
R6

genou wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:Whereas blackberries can't[1] be freed of the component that turns to a nasty grit if liquidised, and are therefore unsuitable for, say, a fool.

[1] Unless someone knows better?

I don't know for certain, but I would be surprised if pushing them through a proper chinois ( with no prior attempt to liquidise ) did not achieve what you are after.

I had to google chinois. Looks like a sieve one pushes citrus pulp through to extract more juice!

Surely that loses a whole lot of the fruit that you want in a dessert?

UncleEbenezer wrote:I had to google chinois. Looks like a sieve one pushes citrus pulp through to extract more juice!

Surely that loses a whole lot of the fruit that you want in a dessert?

It is a very fine sieve. Their primary purpose is to produce velvety textures. For blackberries, it should hold back the pips, but allow the fruit juice and pulp to pass through - the residue in a chinois is remarkably dry. For stiffer material, it can be too fine - I made some hawthorn ketchup last year, and the chinois was too fine to allow the pulp through without excessive effort, so I had to use a coarser sieve.

If you want the fibre in citrus, then I agree that a chinois is not a tool you want. But I am not then sure what tool you could use. You could liquidise it, but the result is still going to be "gritty", which is where I came in.

genou wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:I had to google chinois. Looks like a sieve one pushes citrus pulp through to extract more juice!

Surely that loses a whole lot of the fruit that you want in a dessert?

It is a very fine sieve. Their primary purpose is to produce velvety textures. For blackberries, it should hold back the pips, but allow the fruit juice and pulp to pass through - the residue in a chinois is remarkably dry. For stiffer material, it can be too fine - I made some hawthorn ketchup last year, and the chinois was too fine to allow the pulp through without excessive effort, so I had to use a coarser sieve.

If you want the fibre in citrus, then I agree that a chinois is not a tool you want. But I am not then sure what tool you could use. You could liquidise it, but the result is still going to be "gritty", which is where I came in.

The point about citrus is that if I'm squeezing it I want the juice, not the pulp. That's for drinking, not for dessert.

The same would apply to blackberries as a drink ingredient, but for that I'd want fresh blackberries, not residue from gin-making. Not even if they're destined to reunite with gin in a cocktail! I was talking about them in a Fool or similar dessert, where I want both juice and pulp but not grit!

p.s. a very fine texture - the merest hint of grittiness - can be lovely in a Fool. Pears give you that, and are coincidentally in season!

Diamond Echo, thank you so much for your recipe for sloe sherry, have just sampled a glass and it has warmed me up a treat. Can't believe the years and years I've been throwing away used sloes. Have spread the word amongst friends who also like to make sloe gin. Cheers and a very merry Christmas to you.

R6

Rhyd6 wrote:Diamond Echo, thank you so much for your recipe for sloe sherry, have just sampled a glass and it has warmed me up a treat. Can't believe the years and years I've been throwing away used sloes. Have spread the word amongst friends who also like to make sloe gin. Cheers and a very merry Christmas to you. R6

Thank you Rhyd, what a cockle-warming message out of the blue. I'm so pleased that old tip worked out for you. Happy Xmas and bottoms up eh!

Midsmartin wrote:A couple of years ago I made damson gin. I took out the alcoholic fruit, stoned it (a bit of a faff I admit) and then dipped them in melted dark chocolate. Very nice! The chocolate seemed to go soft after a while, probably because I didn't temper it properly or something, so it was necessary to eat them soon for best results.

Wass it you who was stoned?

Dod