Alcoholic Sloe Jam

Anne invited Penny and me over for dinner on Thursday, and I suggested to Penny that she stayed overnight here so that she could have a drink. After polishing off a bottle of red between us with dinner (Anne was not drinking) I decided it was a good idea when we got home to decant one of my sloe alcohols - they have now been maturing away between six and eight months. I can confirm that sloe vodka is just as good as sloe gin...

Yesterday I bottled up the rest - two bottles of gin, one bottle of the Aldi's 'voshka' and two pints of vodka - the only problem with vodka is that the bottles have these integrated pourers which I could not remove so it is now back in a plastic milk bottle - very refined :)

Last night I boiled up the five pounds of alcohol laden sloes in a pint of water and then spent a good two hours forcing it all through a sieve to end up with about a pint and a half of pulp. I probably could have got a little more but it's damned hard work and return on effort diminishes after the initial scraping of each spoonful. I must say the house smells good...

This morning after the dog walk I made the jam. I added another half pint of water as the pulp was pretty thick and boiled it up. Then added a pound and a half of jam sugar - fresh sloes may be full of pectin but I assumed that these no longer were. Boiled hard for about 15 minutes and it appears to be setting fine. I had the scrapings of the pan/spoon/ladle on cream crackers for lunch, and have just over three pounds in jars.

I probably shouldn't have had any for lunch as I found many typos/bad grammar in this post that needed correcting. Hopefuly, if not perfect at least better now...