It's over two years now since we moved to this house, and I'm ashamed to say that for the last two years we've just ignored the potential harvest from the two damson trees in our garden. This year was different though!
Firstly I made the effort to go and pick the damsons before they all became mush in the grass, and after washing them I put them in plastic bags in the freezer until I had a bit more time to get organised. We love damson gin, but have been finding it increasingly difficult to buy without going to farmers' markets and shops. A quick request on a few internet forums soon gave me an ideal "recipe" and so I was off.
One advantage of freezing the damsons to start with is that you then don't have to bother pricking them before making the gin. Simply put the required amounts of sugar and damsons in a Kilner jar and then pour over the gin. As the alcohol hits the fruit it will cause them to split. Seal up the Kilner jar and shake it to mix the sugar. Then leave it in a dark, cool place and shake daily until all the sugar has disappeared. This took about ten days in our case.
We made our first batch of damson gin about two months ago and last week I gave it the first taste to see how it was getting on, and to determine if any more sugar needed to be added or not. In our case we felt it was sweet enough so I will now leave it for another 4 months minimum before tasting again, passing it through a muslin to remove the fruit and then bottling it. I'll let you know how I get on…
Reminds me that I really must bottle up the sloe gin – have the sloes in the freezer but seem to have mislaid my large bottle of gin… !
We make sloe gin every year, never tried damason gin, too late now, maybe nest year
Whilst I really like Sloe Gin – theres something about damson gin that I live even more. Hard to put my finger on what it is, but if youve not tried it before then I definitely would recommend it!