Text Box: THE MY GINERATION STORY...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Text Box: I started making sloe gin in 2000, using a recipe given to me by a neighbour. In  autumn 2003 I bought loads of gin ready to make a new batch, but when I went out to pick the sloes, I found there were hardly any, so I had to think of other ways of using the gin. I experimented with a few different fruits, and found it great fun, and so continued, until I must have tried nearly thirty different types. Some worked very well, like the passionfruit, and some, like rosepetal, or lychee, did not. In spring 2004 I was organising a big fundraising event for our village hall, and looking for sponsorship and backing from local firms. I approached Pendrill, a company which is based in my village, and received such encouragement and support from the proprietor, Peter Papprill, that I sent him a little pop bottle of passionfruit gin to say "Thankyou".  He telephoned me to say "You should sell this". I was astonished, but he told me that Simon Radley,the chef from the Grosvenor Hotel in Chester had called in and tasted it, and said the same thing. I took a table at the church bazaar in our village hall (I got the vicar’s approval first!) and sold the liqueurs (in second-hand plastic water bottles). I sold almost £200-worth in 2 hours, after which I thought that perhaps I should take this more seriously. In that one afternoon, I sold my entire supply of Sloe gin before it was even ready – people ordered it on the basis of tasting some of the previous year’s supply. From then on I decided to try to get myself organised: my entire work background comes from the Health Service – I have worked for years as a hospital pharmacist – so the transition to entrepreneur is not obvious or easy. I have found it a very steep learning curve, during the ascent of which I have made an ass of myself on more than one occasion. However I have been completely astonished and, in some cases, overwhelmed by the kindness and encouragement I have encountered; I expected the world of commerce to be cutthroat and ruthless. Parts of it probably are, but wherever I’ve been the welcome has been such as to convince me to carry on with my liqueurs, when at times it did all seem too hard and too complicated. There are a huge number of people in the northwest who are absolutely dedicated to producing the best in food and drink. It is a very exciting time. The basic process consists of dissolving sugar in warm alcohol to make a solution which is more concentrated than the fruit. Then when fruit is added, the  sugar-alcohol solution "sucks" the juices out of the fruit. The process takes a varying length of time depending on the type of fruit: soft pulpy fruits like passionfruit, raspberry and blackberry steep fairly quickly, whilst firmer fruits like plums and damsons take longer. Sloes are, appropriately, the slowest. I really enjoy discovering the right way to get the best out of each fruit; each has to be treated differently. Some need warming, some take longer to steep, some need more sugar, some less, some fruits need to be sliced or slightly crushed, or have their skins pierced before steeping. The flavours change gradually throughout the process (it’s a terrible job checking this on a daily basis!) and the mellow fruitiness takes time to develop. You can’t hurry a good liqueur!   Rosie Sedgwick