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Utilizing fruit that’s naturally harsh and astringent — which comes from a coarse, thorny tree — sloe gin is nevertheless a liqueur with balanced flavor, if it’s made right.
There are certain spirits that are so familiar, and yet, when asked, would be very hard to describe accurately from memory alone. Sloe gin is one of those spirits, having ebbed in and out of favor over the past 50 years. Its ruby red hue may be legendary, but the specifics of how sloe gin is produced and what it actually tastes like are still a bit murky to many consumers, despite its renewed popularity.
This specific style of gin is named for the fruit that imparts its flavor and color, the sloe, which comes from blackthorn trees found in the U.K. and Ireland. These trees are dense and spiny and none too appealing. In the past, they were used as a way to demarcate land and keep away wildlife. Often referred to as berries, sloes are technically classified as drupes, or a fleshy fruit containing a single seed encased in a strong coat, quite like its relative, the plum. The flavor of these drupes is tart and bitter; it used to be said that sloes had to see a night’s frost before they were edible. Today, most people choose to stick the sloes in a freezer overnight to soften their skin and reduce their astringency before giving them a prick and soaking them in alcohol.
Sloe picking is typically best around September, after a bit of cold weather has moved in. During the annual autumnal berry harvest, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, and sloe berries will all be brought into the house and consumed in some way or another, with the more palatable berries going on top of porridge or cream, and the sloe berries being submerged into alcohol. Brits typically throw sloes into a jar with gin and sugar and leave it to mature in a cool, dark place for months, giving the jar a daily shake. By Christmas, their sloe gin is ready to be unveiled.
Sloe gin was and still is made at home by folks all over the continent, quite the same way that Italians, by and large, produce their own limoncello. Americans haven’t been so lucky. Since we didn’t readily have access to the essential raw material necessary to make sloe gin, we were forced to settle instead on the mass-produced stuff that started coming out in the ‘70s and gave way to such bawdy cocktails as the Alabama Slammer and the Sloe Screw. No shade if that’s your thing, but elevated cocktails these are not — they were made with products more closely resembling Maraschino syrup or Grenadine than actual sloe gin.
A quick distinction here: Sloe gin isn’t a gin at all, it’s a liqueur — most popular sloe gins today are bottled between 25 and 30% ABV. Sloe berries can also be fermented to make something like a plum wine, which could theoretically be distilled and used as the base spirit for a sloe gin if any brandy distillers out there wanted to really commit, but I digress.
Not long ago, some American craft distillers caught wind of the popularity of this essentially British tipple and have been coming out with their own versions ever since. Greenhook Ginsmiths in Brooklyn, New York has a beach plum gin liqueur that is very similar to traditional sloe gins; they consider the beach plums that grow on the east coast to be a “cousin to the Sloe Berry that Sloe Gins are derived from,” according to their website. Spirit Works Distillery in Sebastopol, California dabbles in a more traditional style of sloe gin, in part because one of their co-founders, Timo Marshall, is originally from England and has family that have been making their own sloe gin for generations. “They of course weren’t doing the distillation side, just harvesting the berries and adding that to a bottle of gin with some sugar,” said Ashby Marshall, co-founder of the distillery. As distillery owners, they realized they could bring a grain-to-glass version of this unique liqueur to the American market, and that they would be the only ones doing so.
There was, however, a reason that no craft distillers up until that point had pursued sloe gin — the fruit needed to make it can’t be found locally stateside. Ashby says that securing their supplier was a long and difficult process, taking nine months in total. She’s understandably tight-lipped about their source, though she does tell me that their sloes come from Bulgaria and are organically farmed. “Obviously coming from overseas, we have to commit to a certain amount; they’re not just going to bring them over per batch for us,” she continued. Spirit Works receives a shipment around December that’s big enough to last them through the year and is kept frozen in storage until they need it.
The Marshalls actually designed their signature gin to be able to work with the flavor profile of the sloes that they would eventually infuse into it, sort of like a Russian nesting doll situation. “We were making the vodka to make the gin to make the sloe gin,” recalled Ashby. Their vodka is made from organic red winter wheat that they mill, mash, ferment, and distill. Once their gin is complete, they add it to a tank with the sloe berries and allow it to macerate for as long as needed, then they put it through a bladder press to ensure maximum extraction of both flavor and color. The final step is to taste and proof down the product before bottling.
Being a craft distiller in America today often means exercising a little creative liberty, and the Marshalls are no different: They decided to lay some of their sloe gin down in new, charred four American oak to see how the flavor changed with a bit of barrel character, a first in the world as far as I can tell. They discovered that the oak influence “takes the pomegranate into dark cherry. And other light tea elements that we have from hibiscus go into a darker Ceylon, so a lot of the flavors in there really match well with that little bit of time in a barrel,” Ashby said. Visitors responded well to the voluptuous mouthfeel of the barrel-rested sloe gin, and it has since become a staple of their distillery.
Overall, Ashby feels that the beauty of making sloe gin is that it naturally lends itself to a more balanced flavor, since the berries are quite tart and astringent by nature. When they empty the barrels used to age their sloe gin, they fill them back up with whiskey, imparting a bit of that flavor into another truly singular product, a sloe gin-finished rye. It makes for one fabulous Manhattan, especially if you replace the sweet vermouth with, you guessed it, sloe gin.
Whether it’s used in cocktails or enjoyed as a holiday sipper, sloe gin is poised to become a part of the drinking zeitgeist once more.