Margaret is a wonderful, kind and intelligent lady. My mother helps her by doing some gardening and occasional decorating as Margaret is almost blind with a degenerative eye disease. This in no way impacts on her enjoyment of shopping and lunches out and no one would know how poor her eyesight really is as this lady is proudly independent and hides it well.
Anyway, she gave me a small bottle of her damson gin as a gift a while ago. I'm not a gin drinker or even a particularly big wine drinker either. I also hate the taste of beer and lager so I wasn't sure what to expect but one day I was tempted to try this gin. It was gorgeous. It was perfectly sweet but not too much and tasted like the delicious innards of one of those very expensive chocolates you sometimes get given at Christmas. My 11 year old sneaked a crafty swig and adored it too which was a bit of a worry! So Margaret gave us the recipe and a demijohn to get started and I've since collected 3 more jars through Freecycle.
2lbs Damsons
2lbs Sugar
1 bottle of gin 70cl
Remove any leaves or stems from the damsons but do not wash them. Place all ingredients in the airtight glass jar and leave in a dark corner. (Ours is out to be photographed). Shake the jar 2 or 3 times a week and leave for about 3 months. Do an occasional taste and add any one of the 3 ingredients to suit your taste buds. This is a bit of a hit or miss affair says Margaret. After 3 months sieve through a muslin cloth and bottle it. Give as gifts or drink and enjoy it.
Our first try at this will be ready in July. In the meantime I'd better find a use for the other demijohns.
Strawberry picking season starts this week, I wonder what strawberry gin or vodka would be like?
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