Advanced options
Pick sloes after the first frost (or cheat: 24 hours in the freezer splits the skins the same way, no pricking required). Cheap gin is fine: the sloes will own it. Shake the jar every few days for the first fortnight, then leave it somewhere dark. Strain through muslin at 3 months: it's drinkable at Christmas, remarkable the Christmas after.
What The Sloe Gin Calculator Works Out
- The recipe: 500g of sloes and 200g to 325g of sugar per litre of gin, jarred together and left to steep. 250g a litre is the classic balance; drier recipes let the fruit lead and the sweet end drinks as a liqueur. Supermarket gin is fine, because the sloes will overwrite it.
- Makes: about 15% more liquid than the gin that went in, as the fruit surrenders its juice and the sugar dissolves, so a litre of gin becomes roughly 1.15 litres, or one and a half 70cl bottles after straining.
- Ready: strain through muslin at 3 months minimum. Made in October it is drinkable at Christmas; given a full year it rounds into the mellow, almond-edged drink enthusiasts hoard.
- Sloes per litre (advanced): override the 500g standard. Heavier fruiting (up to 700g) gives a deeper, more almondy drink; damsons on the same arithmetic make damson gin.
- Cost of the batch and cost per 70cl (advanced): gin at your bottle price (own-label London dry is GBP 14 to GBP 18 for 70cl) plus sugar at about GBP 1.10 a kilo, with hedgerow sloes free, divided across the finished bottles. Homemade typically lands at GBP 10 to GBP 12 per 70cl against GBP 25 to GBP 30 for the shop equivalent.
- Finished strength (advanced): the gin's ABV diluted by the extra volume, so 37.5% gin finishes around 32% before any further dilution from the fruit; commercial sloe gins sit at 25% to 29%. The units line uses the UK rule of litres x ABV = units.
- Bottles to fill (advanced): how many 70cl, 50cl, 35cl, 20cl or 5cl bottles the batch fills for gifting. Hand-labelled small bottles are December's most reliably received present.
- Strain on (advanced): the calendar date your chosen steeping time lands on if you start today. Shake every few days for the first fortnight, then leave it somewhere dark.