Tasting notes

Most of my liqueurs (that have been decanted) are in boxes in the small cellar.  It was dry down there, and as we don't have anywhere else to store them at the moment, it seemed the best solution.

Now that it's not dry down there, I'm not so sure...!

We think it's just all the rain we've had that has made it damp, so fingers crossed opening the doors to both cellars cries them out quickly now that the weather has turned warm and sunny.

The other night we decided to try some of the results.

Number 14: pig-damson gin - made on 22 August, 2010

L-R: big plums, pig-damsons (back), small red plums, mirabelles

The pig-damson is a small damson-like plum that M. Lorin (who sold us the house) said he "wouldn't feed to a pig", so they are known in our household as pig-damsons.  They are not quite like the damsons we know from England, and most years are so tart they never ripen, but just occasionally they turn really sweet and are perfectly palatable.  If I remember correctly, the 2010 ones were the really sharp ones, not edible ones, but I'm not sure.

I 2/3 filled a 4-litre Le Parfait jar/bocal with pricked, fresh pig damsons, added 4 heaped dessert-spoons of sugar and filled the jar with 38° alcool pour fruits [like eau-de-vie, I think?  It's basically raw alcohol for use in making liqueurs/pickling fruit] - about 2 litres.

I shake the jars daily until we go back to England, or I forget, whichever is the sooner, but either way it's normally several weeks, and then the mix is just left to its own devices until I remember to decant them [or the jar is needed for starting another batch of liqueurs!].

Decanted pig-damson liqueur

I found the small bottle of liqueur, and just assumed that it was left over from the bigger bottles that I filled when decanting the bocal, but looking through my book with all my notes in it, I'm guessing that was all I managed to decant!

My book says: "so thick with sediment I'm going to buy a muslin bag & leave them to drain overnight!!  So they're going back in the cupboard", and that was on 27 April, 2011.

And, sure enough, the jar is still in the cupboard!

But I didn't know that when we were tasting it...

My main thought at the time was: I must find some way of removing more sediment; I couldn't offer this to guests.

Cloudy, but nice!

We both thought it smelt plummy, and after David had tasted a sip and said it was dry, I started to smell sloes.  Probably auto-suggestion at work!

Neither of us thought it smelled of pig-damsons, nor guessed that's what if was [we did a blind tasting before I looked up what 14 was].

We both thought it was sloe gin on the tasting, but that could be because it was dry.  David thought it was a fairly syrupy consistency; more like a liqueur than a spirit, and could tell it was alcoholic, but not in a throat-stripping way like grappa.

Overall, we both liked it, and would offer it to guests, but on a "choose your audience" basis; not everyone likes the same things...  But we would both drink it happily [I would be happier if there was less sediment, so some internet research coming up], so maybe I should get a move on and decant the rest!

I do now possess a muslin bag, so that's a good start!

Number 60: sloe sherry

Sloe-and-cinnamon-stick gin, before the gin was added

This is a blend of sloes re-used from making sloe-and-vanilla gin and sloe-and-cinnamon-stick gin.  I got the idea of re-using the sloes (after the gin-turned-into-liqueur has been decanted off) from the Cottage Smallholder blog I notice that another page has a recipe for sloe sherry, but I'm sure I found the idea on the sloe gin entry where someone said to reuse the sloes...

Who knows, that's gone from my memory, and I'm not so great at using the recipes any more - I just fill the jar by eye, and add less sugar than I think I'll need, knowing that I can add more later, but I can't take any away!

The vanilla sloe gin was made on 27 August 2010, and was a 4-litre Le Parfait jar a good 2/3-full of frozen and then squished sloes*, a vanilla pod, 8 dessert-spoons of sugar, topped up with gin (about 2.5 litres).  I subsequently added another 4 dssp sugar.

Re-used sloes turning into sloe sherry

The cinnamon sloe gin was a 2-litre Le Parfait jar, half-filled with frozen, squished sloes*, 2 dessert-spoons of sugar [another 4 dssp added later in the process], a cinnamon stick and just over 1.5 litres of gin.  This was made on 1 October, 2010

[I made another batch at the same time using ground cinnamon, and that was weird!  The ground cinnamon made the liquid extremely viscous - almost like that slime that you get in ponds...  Tastes OK, though.]

I decanted off the liqueurs from the two above brews on 27 April, 2011, and using a 2-litre Le Parfait jar I added just over half a jar of sloes from the cinnamon sloe gin and just under half a jar of the vanilla-infused sloes.  I also added another 4 dessert-spoons of sugar and nearly a bottle of sherry.

That mix is still in the cupboard, but I drew off just enough so that we could try to see if it works...

Sloe sherry

We both noted that it smelt less alcohol-y, and wasn't that fruity smelling, but both thought it was plums.

In tasting, I noted that it tasted spicy, although I thought it tasted of cloves (which I knew to be wrong, as I've only used cloves in making "44"), and David thought it had an almost cherry-like aftertaste.  I was tasting red fruit, but only David guessed sloes.

Either way, it was a real success; the spices adding a certain something, and the re-used fruit not leading to a weak or diluted taste.

So, more sloe sherry on the way, sooner or later...!

* A final note on why I used frozen fruit. Three reasons:

• firstly, I couldn't deal with all the sloes we'd picked, so had to freeze a lot until I could get to them;
• secondly, our previous experiments showed that freezing released more flavour/colour than just pricking the fruit did, so added to the quality of the finished product [and also gave a breathing space after picking, washing and drying all those fiddly little black fruit!];
• thirdly, squishing freezing-cold sloes is a pain in the behind, but way less of a hassle than pricking the little blighters when they are fresh!

[Don't forget the fingers; when pricking sloes it seems as if I never forget to prick my fingers!]