I shall make a gallon or two of sloe liquor

THE hedgerows are bursting with wild fruits. I think the rains came just in time to prevent drying out and early fall. Even so, some blackberries did not form at all but just shrivelled on the stem. Maybe some hazel nuts did not plump up either. Even the tiny little berries of the whitebeam tree, which look like miniature apples for a dolls' house fell too early to be useful.
By The Newsroom
Published 8th Sep 2010, 17:37 BST
Updated 8th Jun 2018, 03:08 BST

But nothing seems to have stopped the sloes, the fruit of the blackthorn, and I have already stuffed the freezer full of blackberries. I shall make a gallon or two of sloe liquor. I do not waste good gin on trying to make sloe gin. I did once, back in 1960, and have regretted it ever since.

Perhaps you know how to make this famous drink. I do not. I followed the instructions which said soak the pricked fruit in a bottle of gin for three months. It all turned a beautiful crimson colour sure enough. But that was the end of the joy.

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I broached the bottle on Christmas Eve and it was bitter with acid from the pips. That bottle hung about for years in the cupboard but however hard I tried it never forgave me and I think it ended its days down the sink.

Twenty years later my wife in her quiet way had a go with some more sloes and the result was magical. We crush the fruit, pips and all, in an old mincing machine, one of those that you screw onto the edge of the table. They are not really pips I suppose but kernels for they are as hard as iron almost.

Don’t they curse when the mincer squashes them down inside that corkscrew tunnel of shiny old metal. (I wish I knew what that metal is - could it perhaps be chrome-steel? It is so hard it can crush bones and never wears out.

The mincer once belonged to granny and in its time minced enough to feed an army). Then my wife puts yeast and sugar after boiling and straining the pulp and juice.

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You do not want to spoil the resulting strong wine with French brandy as William Cobbet advised. Save your money. The blackthorn wine is as strong as brandy and much nicer on the tongue and you must sip it slowly, not throw it back as if it is mere red wine, and you really feel as though it has done you good.

I think the mistake with my old recipe was to leave the kernels in too long. All the acid had time to leach into the drink as well as the tannin from the shells. They say you should wait until the first frosts have sharpened the fruit in October.

There is plenty to go round this year. Three pounds of sloes make a gallon of liquor. I just hope we can still get the yeast.