Period seasonal booze

[88v8]

It's that time again...

Blackberry gin:
1lb berries
7oz sugar (some use varieties of brown, this year we used white)
1 litre gin

Put in demijohn, shake until sugar dissolved, shake daily for 3 months.
Yum.

And perhaps the best part, the blackberries are not wasted. Rescued from the demijohn at bottling time, they go in the fridge where they are known as 'sozzled blackberries' and are scrummy with vanilla ice cream.

We have 2 litre of this on the go.

Also just started a litre of ditto, but with vodka.

And intend another litre of ditto, but with brandy.

Have in the past made damson gin, but poor crop this year. No local sloes, and in any event no good with ice cream

Anyone have any seasonal recipes? A simple way of using plums would be welcome.

Ivor

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Sounds good to me! The blackberries have been good this year, we have plenty of damsons, but the sloes are very small.

 

[Flyfisher]

I used to make sloe gin and damson gin but since we're not really big drinkers the bottles just accumulated so I gave up bothering - much to the dismay of the friends I used to give them to.

The simplest way to use plums is to just eat them! Our Victoria plum trees are (were) heavily laden this year after a couple of very poor years and we've been gorging on them for a couple of weeks now. Looks like they'll only last another week.

 

[mattice]

I've always made a bottle of sloe gin each year, this year I have 6 damson trees in the new garden, every one heaving with fruits, any other uses aside from the usual tipple? They seem very abundant here in Worcestershire, someone tells be they were once used for dye, is this why the hedge rows are full of them?

 

[88v8]

I've always made a bottle of sloe gin each year, this year I have 6 damson trees in the new garden, every one heaving with fruits, any other uses aside from the usual tipple? They seem very abundant here in Worcestershire, someone tells be they were once used for dye, is this why the hedge rows are full of them?

Damson jam !!!! If there are any local jam-makers, and there certainly will be, they'll bite your arm off.

Also good with venison, although that won't use six trees-worth.

And chutney, although we've not tried it.

Here's a few ideas
http://www.mostlyeating.com/what-to-do-with-a-glut-of-damsons

Ivor

 

[JoceAndChris]

Really can't tell if I have damson trees or bullaces?

 

[mattice]

Thanks Ivor!

 

[jocelyn plummer]

No matter which Joce, you can use bullaces as well--bit sharp though!!

 

[88v8]

Plum brandy... many many recipes, using, errrm, gin, sake, vodka, whisky, rum, but not brandy.
Oh well.

One thing that gave me confidence in inventing our own concoction was the wide variation of ingredients and ratios, which suggests that pretty well anything will work.
Especially varied in the fruit/sugar ratio. From 5 sugar to 4 fruit, to 1.5lb fruit vs 1/3 cup of sugar. I suppose it depends on the tartness of the fruit, and one's sweetness of tooth.
As we mostly have our own teeth, we eschewed the 5/4 recipe :shock: and went for the low-sugar variant. One can always add more sugar when bottling of course.

We only have one kilner-type jar, so I filled it with as much as I could cram in.
Plums, cut up but mostly not stoned - life is too short to stone plums - 2.5lb.
Sugar, gran, 6 fl oz
Brandy, cheap, 36 fl oz. Should have been 40 fl oz, but I ran out of space.

Now, shake daily for 3 months.

At worst, we'll end up with plum-flavoured brandy and brandy-flavoured plums, what's not to like? Which means we'll need more ice cream to eat with the plums. It's hard work, this....

As I write, our new maslin pan just arrived from Lakeland, so that's the afternoon taken care of, and some more of the plums.

Ivor

 

[mattice]

Had to revisit this thread. What a year for our first crop of apples.

This little lot created 50l of juice. We've got a couple in the fridge for breakie, 18l in the freezer for Christmas mulled apple juice, and 30l in the fermenting bin for next summer BBQ cider.

Any tips for a drinkable cider?

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Wow, what a wonderful crop!
Haven't a clue about the cider recipe though!! Enjoy!

 

[plasticpigeon]

mmmm

 

[angrybird]

It has been an amazing year for most fruit especially apples.I took a trip to Rosie's cider at the bottom of The horseshoe pass yesterday to buy an empty cider barrel to make the new addition to our family (a 9 year old Golden retriever) a nice new dog bed.
I have never seen so many apples in my life!! all waiting for the cider press!

The barrels are amazing, fully watertight so perfect for water butts and garden planters and only £50 for a full barrel ,mines a Glenfiddich http://www.rosiescider.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49&Itemid=55

 

[mattice]

I'm tempted to take a detour to Rosies next time I'm visiting our little climbers hut in Tremadog. Fantastic website and very nice barrel!

 

[noj]

We tried some quince gin at the weekend - it was excellent... and quince vodka too (less to my taste)

Make in the same way as sloe gin - theortically you coarsely grate the quince but just chopping them a bit works fine and the mix needs less sugar than when using sloes.

It was only a few weeks old and the taste was good so any you make this month should be perfect come Christmas

 

[88v8]

Bottled the gin, vodka, brandy last weekend.

All good. The gin with less sugar than last year has a little more gin flavour. Very acceptable on its own, perhaps not so good for a pudding wine as last year's sweeter version.
The vodka, very drinkable, fruity but lacks distinction.
Brandy, only tasted a teaspoon to check the sugar, but certainly OK.

We bottled them through a fairly coarse sieve, so quite cloudy. Could improve by decanting through muslin, probably won't bother as when we get near the bottom of the bottle we'll just tip the dregs over ice cream.

Quantity-wise, we got about 30% more product than the original alcohol, eg the 1 litre of vodka became 1.3l.
Therefore the abv is around 77% of its starting point, = 30%. If you want a full-strength end-product, could start with something like 50% rum.

The pickled fruit has all gone into the fridge &/or freezer where it has begun to appear in trifles etc. Yum.

Any tips for a drinkable cider?

Cider.... a lot of faff to make cider. Needs a lot of equipment. Next time we have a huge apple crop, we'll take some here
http://www.dayscottage.co.uk/
where they will crush and bottle them for us - our own apple juice.
Probably two years away. Next year we'll likely get zilch. This year's crop from our cooking apple tree must have been in the region of a ton. We've stored and used and frozen and given away huge quantities, the last 3cwt is sitting on our two lawns where it will provide winter fuel for blackbirds, fieldfares, etc.

Ivor

 

[mattice]

Just sampled the barrel of cider made from the aforementioned crop. Very happy, literally, with this first attempt. BBQ at the weekend, could be messy! Thanks for the tips and encouragement!

 

[FamilyWiggs]

I took a trip to Rosie's cider at the bottom of The horseshoe pass yesterday

Ooh - 12 miles from me. Which part of beautiful North Wales are you in?

 

[Penners]

Really can't tell if I have damson trees or bullaces?

It's sometimes difficult to tell, Joce, but in general bullaces are smaller and rounder than damsons, which are more plum-shaped. Bullaces also tend to be a bit lighter in colour, tending towards red rather than the almost black colour of a damson. They're considerably sharper in flavour than a damson - not very nice to eat as a fresh fruit.

 

[88v8]

Made the 2014 fruit booze today.
Slight change of emphasis:

Realised that recipes tend to give the minimum quantity of fruit required, but this year we have a glut.
Also, imho, the residual pickled fruit is almost more desirable than the actual booze, which while perfectly palatable and having novelty/gift value, could actually be sourced from the shops, well, some shops.
But nowhere will you find for sale pixillated fruit.

So, this year, more fruit.

Plum;
2.25lb plums in kilner jar.
6oz demerera sugar
45 fl oz brandy (should have been 40 fl oz per recipe, but I cut the plums pretty small). Napoleon brandy, it said, but I can't really imagine Napoleon visiting Aldi.

Blackberry hybrid vodka;
We, or perhaps I, preferred the vodka to the gin. The gin seemed a bit insistent, the vodka was milder and the fruit came through better. Imho. I suppose the fact is I don't really like gin without a mixer. So, I mixed it with vodka.
Hence, 2.5lb berries
16oz white sugar
1 litre gin, 1 litre vodka, in one demi

Blackberry pure vodka;
3lb berries
24oz white sugar
2.4 litre vodka, in one demi.

Methodology as last year.

In three months it will be ready to bottle, it does improve in the bottle so perhaps one should leave it 15 months before bottling?
The yield and strength will vary according to the juiciness of the fruit.
Last year, I litre of gin yielded two x 70cl bottles of product, with a strength of 24%.

We bottled it in used gin or vodka bottles and reused the caps. The bottles of course were sterilised as per usual wine-making procedures.

If giving gifts to the perhaps unappreciative, 37.5cl suffices, so it can be worth buying smaller bottles so as to have smaller bottles to give away.
Or of course one can buy empty bottles on eBay.

As I've said before, nothing is wasted. The fruit is retrieved, the lovely alcoholic fruit, and keeps for weeks in the fridge. No, forget weeks, it keeps for months and months, just in an old marg tub or Tupperware or what.
Eat with ice cream, add to trifle, or puddings. Yum. Very yum.

The bottled liquor throws a crust that eventually becomes too cloudy to drink, this also can be poured over puds and ice cream. Makes me hungry just thinking of it.

Ivor