If that all seems like too much hassle, or you can’t find any sloes where you are, we recommend you cheat and buy it! This East London-based distillery was the winner of our sloe gin taste test. Using ingredients foraged from in and around East London and Essex, we loved its sweetness and smooth texture. Flavours of citrus peel, burnt sugar, liquorice and dark berries all shone through, too, and the finish on this gin is long, while the aftertaste is warm and smooth. Make like the British aristocracy and sip it neat, or try it chilled over ice to cut through some of the syrupyness.

Sloe Gin - Tesco Groceries Sloe Gin - Tesco Groceries

An enjoyable gin, testers liked the prominent fruity, berry flavours, describing this sloe gin as “warming and syrupy.” Light in acidity, and with a decent linger of taste and warmth. This gin was applauded for its sweet aroma and pleasant berry and currant tastes. Many noted flavours of marzipan, jam and even a hint of honey. The juniper flavours could be stronger, but testers were happy with the pleasurable warmth and texture. Warming and spicy, this sloe gin is pleasant with a medium-sweet taste. The sloe berry sweetness and juniper gin flavours could be more married but the overall taste was satisfying.Made with gin and sloe drupes, a small fruit that has a sharp, sour taste, you can drink sloe gin neat, as a hot toddy, with ice and ginger ale, or even in a shot of Prosecco. The Sacred Distillery, based in Highgate in London, produces both excellent quality classic Gin, as well as some slightly unusual ones (Christmas Pudding Gin, anyone?).

Sloe Gin: What Is It And How To Drink It? – Flaviar Sloe Gin: What Is It And How To Drink It? – Flaviar

Add the Gin, the sugar, seal the jar, and shake well. Once a day for the next seven days, give the jar a good shake. Leave it in a cool dark place for two months. Sloes grow in hedgerows - historically used to divide land in England - and are abundant in the British countryside, making Sloe Gin production easy. Consider how nuts about Gin the English are… it was an obvious pairing and a match made in heaven. So the sloes go into the still along with the rest of the botanicals when creating the Gin, rather than infusing them afterwards. Take your pre-frozen sloes, or fresh ones that you’ve poked a bunch of holes in, and tip them into a 2 litre Kilner jar (or divide between two smaller ones).

Fast forward to today, and Sloe Gin is having a revival. No longer considered only something your granny liked, the big Gin producers have put lots of care and attention into creating Sloe Gins that are deliciously sweet, tart and balanced. Looking for a sloe gin? Look no further as DrinkSupermarket has a range of sloe gins from names such as Monkey 47, Gordon's and Sipsmith. You’d be forgiven for thinking that ‘shooting Gins’ are for doing shots in bars, but actually, they were favoured by the British aristocracy for sipping from a hip flask in the countryside when shooting birds and game. For their Sloe Gin, they’ve found the sweet spot right in the middle. It’s made with organic sloes that are steeped in Sacred Gin for two and a half years!

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In what is our biggest gin test to date, our expert panel put sloe gin to the test. Tasting them completely blind, each sample was tested neat, and then again, diluted with a small amount of water. This was to ensure the flavour was not impaired by any mixer. The quality of the Gin was poor - made with turpentine and all sorts - so adding sloes to it masked the flavour, but was dubbed ‘the poor man’s Port’. This gin reminded some of our testers of cherry bakewell, with many enjoying its fresh forest fruit qualities. The heat of the alcohol was a bit too prominent for some, however, but overall it was found to have an enjoyable, smooth texture. Colder weather and dark evenings call for a warming drink, and while Gin is traditionally thought of as a refreshing summer drink on hot days, there’s no need to step away from the Gin bottle entirely. Sloes are native to Europe and have long been used by the British to create ‘shooting Gins’ (as they used to be known).The good thing about making your own Sloe Gin at home, is that the hard part is done for you. There’s no distillation involved. As this is a Gin-based Liqueur, start with the base. Technically, it’s not really a Gin, it’s a Liqueur. That’s because there are stringent rules about what can and can’t be classified as Gin (if you wanna geek-out about different types of Gin, have a read of this).