Guest post | A lesson in sloe gin making

A Sloe Gin Cobbler

Last Monday, Style & Then Some sent Katherine Gledhill to the Bombay Sapphire Blue Room at Vinopolis to learn about the art of sloe gin. She wrote this guest post to tell us all about it.

What could be better, on a freezing December evening, than a lesson in how to make sloe gin – and how to create beautiful, warming and delicious sloe gin cocktails too? Even long autumn walks in crackling orange leaves whilst picking sloes can’t beat the excitement of learning how to create beautiful flavours with the product of those dark, juicy berries.

In case you haven’t heard of this traditional winter beverage, sloe gin is gin flavoured with sloes, the berries of the blackthorn bush. Usually, it takes weeks and weeks of sugaring, shaking and stirring to allow the sloes to steep in the gin, but last week I learned a much faster way.

My tour of the azure-glowing underground wonderland of Bombay Sapphire began with a refreshing Sloeberry Fizz cockail, a fruity, spicy and delightfully fizzy little number, perfect for party-starting over the festive season.

A Sloeberry Fizz cocktail

We were led down one of the maze of passages to an underground bar for our sloe gin lesson. This method is  much faster than the traditional method of three months in a Kilner jar and it produces a bit of a lighter texture and flavour – you will need a dishwasher though.

So here’s how to make sloe gin the quick way:

1. Wait for the first frost then pick your sloes.
2. Prick with a silver fork or a spike from the bush and freeze.
3. Drink your litre bottle of Bombay Sapphire down to the level of Queen Victoria’s head.
4. Add 450g of sloes (thaw them if frozen) and 200g caster sugar.
5. Screw the cap on very tightly
6. Put the whole thing in the dishwasher for a couple of cycles (about 3 hours in total)
7. Sieve and return to the bottle
8. Make cocktails!

Then came the cocktail demonstration which was quite spectacular, with seven different sloe gin cocktails for us to taste. Tomorrow I’ll share with you a recipe for a Sapphire Sloe Berry Flip.

A Bombay Sapphire Quibble cocktail

My Christmas Wish List | Sophie Caldecott

Style And Then Some Christmas wish list number three coming up. So it might be a little bit more extravagant than Katie’s, and surprisingly doesn’t contain any baking related goodies like Dee’s cute icing flower cutter, but if Santa had unlimited funds to satisfy my every whim, this is what I’d ask for (I’ve been an awful good girl):

1. There’s something really special about having a ‘scent’ that you put on for special occasions. When I smell Benefit‘s Maybe Baby, I am instantly reminded of my 18th birthday; when I smell Chance by Chanel I am taken back to my first year of university. Last May I went to a beautiful ball in my grandmother’s old 1950s Balenciaga dress, and I happen to love the Balenciaga perfume – perfect!

2. Socks are supposed to be the most boring present of all, but I actually really need some, and so would be happy to unwrap this selection of fun patterned woolies on Christmas morning. (Tights and socks from Topshop.)

3. Helen recently wrote about her gold obsession, and I have to say I love this glamorous purse from Topshop. Even if I didn’t have any money to put in it, I’d feel classy.

4. I’ve loved Alex Monroe for ages, and I think this delicate pea pod pendant is my favourite.

5. They come in an unassuming little brown box, but these chocolates by master chocolatier Paul A Young are the best I have ever tasted. He develops at least one new flavour a day with his teams in Camden Passage (Angel), the Royal Exchange, and Wardour Street (Soho).

6. I’ve never really understood why people describe leather as ‘buttery’, but this beautiful ‘Mela’ bag by Danaqa is so soft I almost find myself crooning the word to describe it. Danaqa’s fair trade bags are only made from by-products of the food industry in Ethiopia by local craftswomen, and come in classic shapes with hand woven lining.

7. I am in love with the heart jumper by Goodone. Simple as.

8. The extremely talented illustrator and graduate of Kingston, Frances Ives, did this gorgeous blooming tube map in which every stop is a leaf or a flower. I want a copy to put on my bedroom wall.

9. I’ve been a die-hard fan of Elle Macpherson’s The Body range of products for a while now, mostly because they smell so good. I was distraught, then, when they stopped stocking her range in Boots. I know Jo Malone is expensive, but I recently discovered this Lime, Basil & Mandarin body creme smells exactly like the Elle Macpherson body moisturiser that I miss so much.

10. I’m rather behind on this, but everyone has raved about One Day so much that I want to read it myself. It’s always nice to have a new book to read on Boxing Day to get you through the food coma.

But of course, if you can’t get me any of these presents, Santa, don’t worry, because: