pumpkinstrokemarrow

Picked another gallon of blackberries into the second demijohn this bank holiday afternoon, having paid a second visit to Wilkinsons this morning. Handy thing this bank holiday shopping. Blackberries from Horton Lane rather smaller and harder than the last lot, perhaps the result of picking on the eastern rather than the western side of the lane. Didn't notice any spiders this time. On the other hand, a certain amount of honking, presumably chaps from the TB. Who pointed out after the last lot that it was much easier to get one's blackberries from Sainsburys, a proceeding which has the additional advantage that you can buy other fruit, raspberries for example, while you are at it. As far as I can make out, picking fruit down Horton Lane is a minority sport.

We then moved into construction. Having decided (see previous post) that 'twas nobler in the mind to make sloe gin out of gin.

First take two bottles of gin, one Gordons and one basic from Sainsburys ('taste the gin, not the fancy labelling'). Fetch up an further empty bottle of gin, two empty half bottles and one bottle of mineral water from Blenheim Palace. Empty water and rinse out the bottle, which is not far short of a half bottle: 33cl to the half's 37.5cl.

Add sugar to empty bottles at the rate of 75g to the half bottle. Stab sloes with our handy short bladed knife from the kitchen devil people, the only people who seem to make a kitchen knife with a really short blade. Just the thing for peeling oranges or stabbing sloes, although being hollow ground has not held its edge very well. Fill all the bottles with sloes. Tamp down a bit to get in as many as possible. Top up with gin. Shake about a bit and file in the cupboard under the stairs. Got the quantities about right here: a cup of sloes left over (discarded) and half a cup of gin left over (transferred to small jam jar for consideration later). A little bit of fiddling about with an empty plastic water bottle to liberate space in the two gin bottles which started full; hopefully the plastic will not do anything unpleasant to the flavour.

Second, add 1lb or so of sugar to the second demijohn. Take 1.5l bottle of Sainsbury's finest blended whisky and pour most of it into the demijohn. Maybe a couple of cups left (also for consideration later). Add bubble seal, wrap in brown paper, label it No. 2 so that we know which is which in months to come and place under study table.