Any ideas on this blackthorn

[farmer rod]

Sloes on one area of blackthorn are affected. Anyone seen this before, or know what would cause it?

[Bob Morris]

Could it be the fungus Taphrina pruni ?

[woody paul]

A lot of them near me like that. The sloe's are destorted. 

Edited June 9, 2023 by woody paul

[farmer rod]

could be a poor year for sloe gin. Bother

[jimboy]

Apologies for opening an old thread, just wondering a couple of points. There is a lovely patch of blackthorn on open ground near me. We has a six week dry spell up here in April/May2023 (or was it an our summer) which was unusual as it rains every day. Anyway the endmost sloe berries closest to the tips were going the same way as the earlier photos. Nature prevailed however and it chucked it down with rain every day for the remainder of the year and the berries fattened up beautifully. I made the mistake of trying to avoid picking them for as long as possible and in the interim, someone else noticed the berries and had the majority away. I was lucky enough to salvage enough sloe berries to make three litres of gin.

First, how did everybody else get on with their sloe gin, and second, I only started the mix in  December. I have sampled it and it tastes great, and now just wondering when i should decant the berries? 

[peds]

Leave the gin on the berries until the sun turns cold. You can drink it at 3 months, but it takes time for the almond notes from the kernel to diffuse. Best left for a few years if you've got the opportunity. 

Edited March 20 by peds

[skc101fc]

We make it commercially in the distillery whete I work. 1000l per year.  Sloes come from Poland,  but importantly,  are frozen,  which ruptures the skins, rather than pricking with forks or pins.

Fruit is kept on the gin and sugar for at least 9months, in steel ibcs to exclude light. Light will cause the liquid to go brown rather than its gorgeous purple colour. 

Half demerara sugar half white , gives a richer flavour. We initially add in 100kg of sugar, then gently stir every 2-4 weeks.  After about 5-6 months we start sampling and adding more sugar to get to right balance. Not all sloes have same sugar contents year on year, so not practical to just follow a set recipe. 

[peds]

Just for a laugh, I started all of mine with no sugar this year (a few bottles of hawthorn gin, too), to see what they'd be like. Very astringent neat, obviously, but tempered enough by tonic alone for my own tastes, as I prefer bone-dry drinks across the board. I will end up sweetening most of them anyway I imagine, to stop my wife complaining. But I'll keep a bottle unsweetened for personal use I think.

 

I completely forgot this year, but next year I'll do the same and start them all dry, then make a cheong syrup to sweeten with at leisure: just equal weight of sloes and sugar left in a jar for a few months until the juices are extracted and the sugar dissolved. Left long enough it starts to ferment as well, giving a slightly tart syrup. 

[sime42]

I'm warming to the idea of making sloe gin and other such drinks dry initially. We made a batch of Hawthorne gin last season, (large Chinese Hawthornes), and did it without sugar. It is quite sour and astringent but not unpleasantly so. It's easily tempered by the sweetness in the tonic water as you say. I might split the bottle and sweeten some slightly for neat drinking, and leave the rest as it is.

 

Same with stewed fruit. I used to add sugar before bottling always but find that these days most things have enough inherent sweetness. Plums certainly do. It's another acquired taste thing I guess.

 

 

[peds]

Jaysus, those are some big haws. You'd not be long harvesting those. Many thorns? 

 

There's native hawthorn in every hedgerow in every direction of course, but I'd be tempted to have a tree or two of that variety tucked away somewhere if harvesting is made easier.