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Plymouth Sloe Gin

What is Plymouth Sloe Gin? Plymouth Sloe Gin liqueur is made by gently steeping the finest sloes in Plymouth Gin and soft pure Dartmouth water. The process is carefully monitored and never hurried, until the perfect liqueur flavour is achieved.

Sloe berries are usely picked after the first frost of the winter in October or November, although now spring comes earlier in the UK they are sometimes ripe and ready to pick in September.

In the production process a wide-necked jar that can be sealed is needed. Each berry is pricked, and the wide necked jar is filled half way with the pricked berries. For each pint (0.5 litre) of sloes, 4oz (100g) of sugar is used, then the jar is filled with gin, adding a few cloves and a small stick of cinnamon, as well as the almond essence. The jar is sealed and turned several times to mix, then stored in a cool, dark place. It is turned every day for the first two weeks, then each week, until at least three months have passed. The gin will now be a deep ruby red. The liqueur is then poured off and the spices and berries discarded.The liqueur can be filtered, but it is best decanted back into clean containers and left to stand for another week. Careful decanting can then ensure that almost all sediment is eliminated, leaving a clear liqueur. Made in this way, the alcohol extracts an almond-like essence from the sloes, avoiding the need to add almond essence.

Sloe gin is a favourite of mine and is a brilliant product to use in the creation of fantastic tasting cocktails. Its not a product which receives a lot of press and is not used enough in my opinion, hence why I am educating  you the readers about it and appreciating the product by featuring it in some of my recipes.


You can purchase Plymouth Sloe Gin in most supermarkets, it normally retails at around the £17 mark.

Gin Jam

Gin Jam

Gin Jam


Here is the next instalment for my 1man1drink cocktail recipe's for you the reader to mix up and enjoy. I recently designed and published this drink for cocktail of the month in a local magazine called DV8.
This weeks featured spirit will be Gin, a favourite of mine due to its fragrant nose and its versatility as a base spirit in any cocktail recipe. This is a simple, unique, crowd pleasing drink.

Ingredients - 35ml Plymouth Gin, 15ml Plymouth Sloe Gin, 1 teaspoon Blackcurrant Jam (home-made or not), 1/4 of a lime, soda, 1/2 teaspoon sugar.

Method - Add the Plymouth Sloe and Plymouth gin into your mixing glass. Add the teaspoon of blackcurrant and stir it in till separated. Now add the sugar and lime juice, fill your mixing glass up with hard ice, attach your tin and shake vigorously till ice cold.
Prepare a rocks glass, or and empty jam jar with crushed ice, strain the ingredients of your mixing glass over the crushed ice leaving enough room for a dash of soda. Once dashed crown the drink with crushed ice. Garnish the drink with a Lime wedge and a smidgen of blackcurrant jam.


Tasting notes -  The Gin Jam should ultimately be a dry drink with a bitter edge and have a sweet finish to it. Depending on the amount of jam you use the gin should be the predominate ingredient standing out. Again this is a very refreshing summertime drink but also an easy drink to replicate at home. Add some muddled blackberries or raspberries to variate, the drink also works well with vodka.   


Calorie count - (roughly) 160kcal

Shaken not stirred - The Vesper Martini

Shaken not stirred, one of the most recognised and memorable lines in the history of film, the term is used all around the world and is recognizable in western popular culture
Shaken not Stirred is a catch phrase of Ian Flemming's fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond, and his preference for how he wished his martini prepared. The phrase first appears in the novel Diamonds are Forever (1956), though Bond does not actually say the line until Dr No (1958) but says it "shaken and not stirred" instead of "shaken, not stirred."

Bond first ordered a drink to be shaken in Fleming's novel Casino Royale (1953) when he requested a drink of his own invention which would later be referred to as a ' Vesper ', named after the Bond Girl, Vesper Lynd. After just meeting his CIA contact Felix Leiter for the first time, Bond orders the drink from a barman while at the casino.

'A dry martini,' he said. 'One. In a deep champagne goblet.'

'Oui, monsieur.'

'Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?'

'Certainly monsieur.' The barman seemed pleased with the idea.

'Gosh, that's certainly a drink,' said Leiter.

Bond laughed. 'When I'm...er...concentrating,' he explained, 'I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold, and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad. This drink's my own invention. I'm going to patent it when I think of a good name.'

 Why shaken and not stirred - There have actually been scientific studies to determined the difference to a martini shaken and a martini stirred. According to a study at the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Western Ontario in Canada to determine if the preparation of a martini has an influence on their antioxidant capacity, the shaken gin martinis were able to break down hydrogen peroxide and leave only 0.072% of the peroxide behind, versus the stirred gin martini which left behind 0.157% of the peroxide. The study was done at the time because moderate consumption of alcohol appears to reduce the risk of cataracts, cardiovascular diseases, and stroke, none of which afflict James Bond.


So just to re-cap here are the ingredients for the Vesper Martini. 75ml Gordon's gin, 25ml vodka (Russian, as this is Bond's preference) 15ml Kina Lillet vermouth and garnished with a lemon peel. The drink can be shaken or stirred, if shaken, shake til ice cold and double strain into your martini glass, if stirred, use a bar spoon and stir 24 times clockwise and then 24 times anti-clockwise and also double strain into your martini glass. 

Kina Lillet vermouth

Vesper Martini with a lemon twist

James Bond with his weapon of choice