Grow Your Own Magazine

Has anyone experimented to see if the quality of the gin is important ?

The instinct is to go for the cheapest gin possible but it's alcohol level will be 37.5 % instead of 40 and it must have fewer botanics than the expensive offerings. Does it make any difference ?

Rob

By the fourth or fifth glass full you won't give a monkeys about the quality of the Gin!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Like most alcoholic drinks,home-made or otherwise,the further down the bottle you get,the better it tastes!!

If I haven't been on a booze cruise, I use either Lidl or Asda gin. It tastes fine. I wouldn't waste something like Tanqueray or Bombay Sapphire on it.

Mind you, my MIL always swore by Gordon's.

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"I prefer rogues to imbeciles as they sometimes take a rest" (Alexander Dumas)

We have sampled several brands in the name of research for your question, and anyway we needed some half-empty bottles to fill with sloes...and we had to buy a bottle of G*rdon's sloe gin as inspiration ...
actually, T*sco basic works for us. Looking fwd to going out and picking the sloes now

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

cheap is good! dont forget to prick the sloes, help with colour and flavour

Cheaper the better. The difference between 37.5% and 40% is so minimal it shouldn't make any difference. Do remember to prick the sloes to let out the juice, and I always add some sugar which helps with the flavour and also helps to preserve the drink (not that you really need it with the alcohol). It really isn't worth using expensive spirits for home-made liqueurs.

Lidl's cheapy does it for us, same with sloe vodka cheap and cheerful and after 3 or 4 glasses we are certainly cheerful

Just drink 2.5% more to get the same effect!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Many thanks for confirming my own feelings. Just a question now of finding the best price as in previous years I've managed to bring the gin home from abroad - Lidls are due a visit this Thursday anyway.

As far as the pricking is concerned, I gave that up some years ago when the family did a pick and I had 6 bottles worth to process. They now just go in the deep freeze and are allowed to thaw slowly which splits the skins. I haven't done a comparison test with that made with pricked fruit but the drinking is just as happy and tastes great.

The berries are so prolific this year that I picked enough for sloe wine as well and the fruit in that case was brought to the boil. Curiously the the mash smelled of strawberry jam.

Rob

heard on the radio today that waitrose are going to start selling sloe berries - no other supermarket sells them .....
ok i know you're all waiting for the punchline but there isn't one
honest

You are supposed to wash the saucepan between making jam and boiling the spuds, silly

KK

I always stick mine in the freezer first. The rule used to be that you shouldn't pick the sloes until they'd had a frost on them. With the warmer autumns/winters, they've gone before this happens. So, stickin' em inna freezer does the same job.

I've never found many of the skins splitting though, so I still prick them. It's summat to do whilst watching the telly.

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"I prefer rogues to imbeciles as they sometimes take a rest" (Alexander Dumas)

Not the cheapest of gins available but there is a very nice Shetland Gin. Very delicately tasting, but got quite a kick.

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Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway.
~ Mary Kay Ash

Shame to waste it with the rich plummy flavour of sloes then Jenny. I adhere to the cheapo theory when adding strongly flavoured fruits. Posh gin should be savoured!

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Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Updated November 30th - Mr Stinky's Excellent Adventure (and a Christmas Cake)