“Sloe gin is always sickly sweet.”
... has been the sticking point for us for years.
We’ve been asked again and again whether we’d ever make a sloe gin at Loveday. And we understood why people wanted one. There’s something very lovely about dark autumn fruit, hedgerows, picking sloes and putting something away to turn into a bottle you’ll open when the evenings get colder.
But whenever we talked about actually making one, the same thing came up.
Traditional sloe gin can be very sweet. Lovely for a tiny glass at Christmas, perhaps, but often a bit too tooth-coatingly cloying for much more.
So we decided to see if we could make a sloe gin that kept the thing we loved - all that rich, jammy autumn fruit - while holding onto the tartness and freshness of the fruit too.
Making a sloe gin that isn't too sweet
Last autumn, we went picking.
We also put the word out to our lovely local community for any spare sloes and damsons, and loads of you turned up at the distillery with bags and boxes of fruit. Thank you again if you were one of them.
Then we got macerating.
The challenge was essentially: how little sweetness can we get away with adding?
Sloes are naturally incredibly tart, so some sweetness is needed to bring all that fruit flavour forward. We kept adding and tasting until the natural sourness was sitting right on the edge of the balance we wanted: bright, zippy and jammy, with enough sweetness to round everything out without taking over.
Why sloes AND damsons?
We hadn't actually planned to combine them.
We'd been working with our sloes and damsons separately while developing the gin. Then, while blending the final liquid, we had one of those very scientific distillery moments:
What happens if we put these together?
Holy smokes.
The tartness of the sloes and the juicy, plummy richness of the damsons just sang together.
So that was that.
Our Sloe & Damson Gin was born.
What does Loveday Sloe & Damson Gin taste like?
Think tart sloe, juicy damson and dark, jammy autumn fruit, balanced with just enough sweetness to soften the edges.
It's rich and fruity without becoming syrupy, with a lovely freshness running through it that keeps you coming back for another sip.
And, like everything we make at Loveday Distillery in Falmouth, Cornwall, it's been developed by tasting, tweaking and obsessing over the details until we were properly happy with it.
When does Sloe & Damson Gin launch?
Our new Sloe & Damson Gin launches on 16th October.
We're making just 136 bottles, and the waitlist will get first access before we release it more widely.
How do I get a bottle?
Join the Sloe & Damson Gin waitlist and we'll email you when early access opens.
There's also a little something for the quickest among you: the first 10 people on the waitlist to order a bottle will receive a lino print of the original artwork used to create the label.
The fruit was picked last autumn. It's spent the year becoming something we're very excited to finally pour.
Now all that's left is to get it into your glass.
Join the waitlist for first access to Loveday Sloe & Damson Gin.