Blackberry & apple gin

Hello Friends,
Hands up who's feeling festive! Me, me, me! I love December. I enjoy doing seasonal things just as our ancestors have done for generations before us, when there would have been a much greater awareness of the seasons changing. You won't find any air-freighted strawberries in this house, I can tell you. There are so many strong folk traditions around December, as well as things I look forward to doing all year. This morning, I've been getting on with just one of these things, as it was time to bottle this year's home-made fruit liqueur. This year, I made Blackberry & Apple Gin. 

It looked like this when I started it off in early October.........

  
......but the colour & richness gradually develops into a jar full of lush berry-coloured loveliness just in time for Yuletide.

It's so easy to make these liqueurs that I'm surprised more people don't do it. For Blackberry & Apple Gin, you need a standard size (about 750ml) bottle of gin.......& there's no need to squander your best Bombay Sapphire, the 'Like brands only better' varieties are perfectly fine here. You'll need a clean kilner jar or any large jar with a tightly fitting lid. Sterilise it first by washing in very hot water then drying it in a low oven. Scoop 250g blackberries into the jar along with a chopped apple which you've peeled & cored. If you've only got titchy little apples, use two. Then add 300g ordinary white granulated sugar. Seal the jar & shake. Now all you've got to do to make the Festive Purple Magic happen is to shake it every day for a week to ten days until the sugar has dissolved & the colours are starting to run. Leave for about 3 months in a cool dark place, then strain & bottle it.  

This is really easy. Scald a jelly bag by pouring a kettle of boiling water over it in the sink & use it to line a sieve. if you don't have a jelly bag, use a clean cotton tea towel scalded in the same way. Many years ago, I was told of a colleague who purportedly strained jams & jellies through her aertex knickers, but I would probably not advise going down this route myself........though if the rumour was true, fair play to her for resourcefulness, I say!

I like to let the fruit sit in the sieve to drain for about an hour or so. It's good stuff, you don't want to waste any! Then the final job is pouring it carefully into sterilised glass bottles & labelling it. The easiest option here is to use the original gin bottle, & I like to save small bottles too, for filling & giving as gifts.

Don't forget to leave yourself a tester. You wouldn't want to be giving sub-standard presents now, would you? What you do with the boozy leftover fruit is entirely up to you. I am feeling so totally chilled out, I'm wondering if the small bowl of this I ate with my lunch, kind of by way of one of my 5-a-day, was really one of my most top ideas, but later, with a sprinkle of sugar & a high-end vanilla ice-cream.....now I could be tempted by that!

As people who already make fruit liqueurs will know, there are pretty much limitless variations on this theme. Sloe gin is the traditional one, of course, & if you are confident with a bit of foraging, you can add blackberries & a few rosehips to sloes to make hedgerow gin. Damsons work brilliantly, though can be difficult to find in the shops & in the wild. Don't like gin? No matter, use vodka instead. Raspberry vodka is slurplicious & I made a Christmas cranberry vodka last year, using exactly the same method, but adding the zest of an orange, a few cloves & a cinnamon stick to the jar with the fruit & sugar. So, if you've never tried making your own liqueur, give it a go. They make great gifts (especially to oneself!) 

Before I sign off, I just want to share with you this tip I read in a magazine yesterday. I'm fascinated by strange household tips. Some are so fiendishly clever & are a way of keeping old wisdom alive. Others are frankly bizarre.  This one made me laugh so hard, I practically snorted biscuit crumbs out of my nose:

"If you are affected by sore runny eyes when chopping an onion, stick your head in the freezer".

OK. I can see that extreme cold might be soothing & temporarily call a halt to onion-eyes, but we have one of the tall freezers with separate drawers. To avail myself of this handy tip, I would have to keep a drawer at shoulder height permanently empty,in which to plunge my head in the event of a severely rogue onion. Even after my sampling of those 100%-proof berries, I'm spotting a few logistical issues with this one! 
Hope you're all having a pleasant week with your own festive preparations. And down with Black Friday! Home-made blackberry & apple gin is where it's at, not some horrible soulless scrum for another piece of electronic tat we neither need nor can afford. Here's to the simple life! I'll drink to that!
Till next time, when I'll be making up my festive home made hampers.
C x