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Drink

Sloe Gin

A gin-based liqueur made by infusing sloes with gin, sugar, and bitter almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and almond 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

Steep

  1. Prick the sloes and place them in a two-gallon jar.

  2. Add the gin, sugar-candy, and bitter almonds.

  3. Shake well two or three times a week.

  4. Keep the jar well corked.

Strain and bottle

  1. After two months, strain and bottle the mixture.

  2. Dissolve the sugar-candy in some gin over a fire until it becomes syrup.

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. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  2. Gin + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Gin + almondtop 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 fruit flavour and colour that the gin takes up during steeping.
Gin
Extracts flavour from the sloes and acts as the base spirit that preserves the liqueur.
Sugar-candy
Adds sweetness that softens the sharp, tannic bite of the sloes.
Bitter almonds
Contribute a distinct almond aroma and nutty background flavour to the liqueur.

The step that matters

Keep the jar well corked. Sealing the jar stops alcohol and aromatic compounds from evaporating and keeps outside air and contaminants from reaching the steeping liquid, so the flavour develops evenly over the months.

“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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