Sloe gin is one of my
favourite drinks, I can drink loads of the stuff and I'm not even a big
drinker. Every year we try to make enough to bottle up as seasonal
presents, in addition of course to my stash. In October the family went
for a walk and D and T helped me to pick sloe berries, about 3 tubs full, with
the aim of making sloe gin in December. Three months in demi jons with
some sugar and gin and a few shakes later the sweet, purple mixture was ready
to decant.
My mother kindly helps out
by drinking small bottles of red wine throughout the year, mostly on the train
coming to see us and then saves the bottles for us, for this purpose. To bling
them up this year we used the glue gun to stick shiny bobbles onto the caps and
tied gold ribbon around their necks. The previous year I had cut a 'sloe
berry' motif into some lino and we used this again. T helped ink and
print the some sticky labels and wrote some of the dates. Now the distribution,
we made 18, but there are never enough, these will go to family, close friends,
sloe gin lovers and some thank yous.
