The last few years in the run-up to Xmas I’ve made fruit gin – sloes, blackberries, wild plums etc. While the gin itself is pretty good I’m left with a few lbs of mushy fruit that tastes of concentrated gin and contains enough alcohol to kill an elephant. So far I’ve tried

* freezing it and using as an ice cream/yoghurt topping – smells and (probably) tastes like IPA and I don’t mean India Pale Ale

* combining it with apples to make a crumble that nearly poisoned the whole family

What I could do with is some way of toning down the flavour/alcohol content and maybe making something edible out of it. Any ideas are welcome ta

Make Kriek?

Donate it to homeless people?

You could always go elephant hunting. That should fill the freezer nicely over winter.

I put my sloes on a sheet of baking silcone, pour molten chocolate over, When it has cooled, flip it over and pour more on the other side.

Few ideas i’ve done:

– Make “slider”, find the cloudiest scrumpy cider you can find and put the gin soaked sloes in their for a fortnight, makes a pink tinged toe-curler of a cider.

– Add the sloes to red wine, leave for a month (make sure there is no air gap at top), then after a month, remove the sloes and add a little brandy to taste, tastes like a half decent Port. (you can then make a very tasty mulled wine using this based on this recipe from Alexander Armstrong:

https://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-12-19/alexander-armstrong-and-giles-corens-favourite-festive-tipples/  )

– I normally use freshly picked sloes, but have also used ones that have been in gin already to make Pacharan, a basque spirit. My version is about a kg of sloes, add a bottle of an aniseed based spirit like Annisette, Sambuca or Ouzo, 8-10 coffee beans and a vanilla pod, some people use a cinnamon stick instead of the coffee beans, leave for about 6 months.

Definitely make slider. It’s brilliant. With clear cider though

Hmm liqueur chocolates and weapons-grade cider 🙂

Many thanks