onionbagblog

Two months of intense expectation (um, we actually forgot where we left the bottles…) and whaddya know - yep, it’s only time for the Ye Olde Nottingham meets Wivenhoe Sloe Gin to be decanted.

Blimey.

I say decanted - the technique was much more in line with pouring the contents of the cheapo Sainsbury’s gin straight into the large kilner jar to separate the sloes, and then straight back into the cheapo gin bottle.

Such hasty speed in seeing gin pass from one vessel to another was thirsty work.

Chin Chin.

We were left with a rather sweet smelling and rich treacle like mixture. The booze connoisseur, um, @AnnaJCowen was bang on the money with her classy observation that it tastes like “cough mixture.”

Whoops.

Actually, that’s rather unfair. The £5.49 (I think) bottle of Sainsbury’s own brand gin has indeed had some extra value to it. How wonderful as well that this extra value was sourced somewhere between the Sailing Club and Alresford Creek.

Would we repeat the exercise? Possibly. Compared to home brew beer (still got the Euro ’96 special brew fermenting away) and the whole process is a lot simpler, and nowhere near as messy.

But the proof as ever, is in the pudding. Or even the drinking. Ask me again sometime over the weekend when half a bottle of Ye Olde Nottingham meets Wivenhoe Sloe Gin has put me under until Monday afternoon.

Chin chin, Comrades, chin chin.