If you grew up in the U.S., your impression of sloe gin might be stained with the neon-hued, sticky-sweet remnants of college-era bad choices. From the Alabama Slammer to the Sloe Comfortable Screw, stateside drinkers have long associated the curious liqueur with saccharine tailgate-worthy concoctions. But of course, that wasn’t always the case.
What do sloe gin, grenadine, and maraschino cherries have in common? Nothing! In the 1970s, the domestic brands seemed to be made with the same artificial flavors and colors: red, syrupy and vaguely cherry flavored.
But sloe gin is to Britain, what limoncello is to Italy. Everyone goes out harvesting, everyone makes it at home, serves it to guests after supper, and is fiercely proud of their homemade versions of this gin liqueur.
There is now a rising tide of passionate distillers working to stock bars with premium sloe gin. One British distiller's sloe gin begins with its flagship London Dry, captured off the still at 60% alcohol by volume (abv). It’s then macerated with frozen wild sloe berries and left to mature for three to four months. It’s finished with a touch of sugar and diluted to a mellow 29% abv. The result is a jammy, herbaceous elixir. Each year’s vintage is dated and, once opened, will develop in complexity gradually as it oxidizes. It’s a far cry from the pink swill of bygone decades.
While people may be hesitant to try it, one sip, and it becomes clear that this is a very different, very delicious gin liqueur.
Tasty as it may be, many Americans don’t know the first thing about the mysterious fruit behind this unique spirit: sloe berries.
It is a pretty tough, astringent old berry. The English countryside is a patchwork, and through the1800s, the way they divided up those fields was with hawthorn and blackthorn bushes. At harvest time, you didn’t just harvest your fields, you harvested the hedges: blackberries, raspberries, strawberries…the sloe berry was in amongst that. You’re not going to sling the sloe berry into a bowl with cream, so the way to use it was to macerate it with alcohol. In England, that meant gin, and thus, sloe gin was born.
One American distiller is shipping in real sloe berries for its bright, zesty, generations-old family recipe. But this doesn’t mean the operation is stuck in the past. The distillery’s unique Barrel Reserve expression, rested in charred new American oak for a heartier, toastier finish, smacks of New World innovation. Aging sloe gin brought the pomegranate notes toward dark cherry, the fresh tea-like nose to a roasted Ceylon, and the mouthfeel to liquid velvet.
Despite its common name, the sloe berry, or prunus spinosa, is actually a stone fruit, similar to a plum, but smaller with a waxy skin and sharp bitterness. They’re native to Europe, but their proximity to other stone fruit has led some distilleries outside of the U.K. to experiment with alternate versions of sloe gin that incorporate local ingredients.
There’s a new generation growing up with gin being very cool. With sloe gin, they ask, ‘What is this bright red gin? What category is it? Where does it come from?’ They’re rediscovering it as a really interesting modifying ingredient for their cocktails.
