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Drink

Sloe-gin

A gin infused with sloes, bitter almonds, and sugar, steeped for three months.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Sloe-gin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and steep

  1. Put the sloes into a 1-gallon jar.

  2. Add the chopped or pounded bitter almonds and loaf sugar.

  3. Pour in the gin.

  4. Shake the jar every three days for three months.

Bottle

  1. Strain off the liquor, bottle it, and seal the corks.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  2. Sugar + gintop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Almond + gintop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sloes
Provide the main fruit flavour and deep colour as they steep in the gin.
Bitter almonds
Add a distinct nutty, almond-like aroma and flavour to the liqueur.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps draw juice and flavour out of the sloes.
Gin
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour and colour from the sloes over time.

The step that matters

Shake the jar every three days. Regular shaking keeps the sugar and fruit mixed with the gin, so the sugar dissolves and flavour and colour extract evenly over the long steep.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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