These handsome jars are, I predict, one of the best investments I’ll make this year. Alongside, y’know, the emotional investment of getting married, and suchlike… But, yeah, I certainly expect the next few years’ impact on the liquid contents of these jars to be rather more benevolent than their impact on my FTSE All Share tracker fund holdings.
The trick with sloe gin is always to make more each year than you drink, allowing yourself to accumulate increasingly valuable stocks. If you’ve never tried homemade sloe gin that’s been kept for years (I mean 5, 10, perhaps longer), you won’t realise how fabulously good this drink can be. And you thought it was pretty good after one or two, didn’t you?
Best strategy of all: keep yourself going with other more short-term investments in the meanwhile, preventing you from prematurely drawing down your long-term investment. The alcoholic equivalent, I guess, of one of those fixed-term high interest savings accounts or something.
YOU WANT METAPHOR, DON’T YOU? YOU GOT IT.
This year’s short term investments are blackberry gin, greengage gin and (Amy’s concoction, this) quince brandy. Because these are all softer fruits, without the austerity and tannin of the sloe, they’re likely to be less rewarding of years spent maturing.
I shalln’t bore you with recipes, as you can Google those and I’m no expert. I just half-fill the jar with the fruit, then add gin. The important thing (in my opinion) is not to add the sugar until you’ve finished the fruit-steeping, as it’s bloody hard to get the balance right if you can’t taste what you’re doing. Once you’ve strained the liquid, you can simply make up a sugar syrup (heating equal weights of water and sugar gently in a pan until the sugar dissolves) and add it to taste.
Anyhow, that’s it. Those jars are going back in the cupboard. I guess I’ll entertain myself watching the stockmarket while I wait.
What could possibly go wrong?