And Life Sloes Down: Sloe Gin Cocktail
Sloe gin is one of those highly seasonal drinks, despite being commercially available all year round. This is because sloes are very much an autumn-winter fruit, but even so I find the sweetness of sloe gin a bit heavy during the warmer months anyway.
I have tried a good number of different sloe gins including Gordon’s, Sipsmith, Plymouth and few of small batch artisan ones. In most cases I found that they were too syrupy for me to drink neat. Even over ice they were more of a dessert drink than either an aperitif or digestif. My personal favourite so far is the Plymouth as it, to my palate at least, still allows the gin to come through without drowning it in sugar.
When looking for a early evening cocktail last weekend, I remembered that I had a barely touched bottle of Plymouth Sloe gin and wondered if there was anything that tickled my taste buds. One of the first ones I found was called “And Life Slows Down”. At first it sounded as though it was adding sugar on top of sugar with both amaretto and pineapple juice, but then I noticed the Campari and thought I’d give it a go.
The recipe that I had found only called for a dash of Campari, but then again, I sometimes only use recipes as a guideline for ingredients. I kept the same measure of sloe gin and pineapple juice as these were the base of the cocktail, but reduced the amaretto and upped the Campari. After the first dry shake, I tasted the concoction and added bit more Campari along with the ice and gave it another good shake and poured it into my chilled cocktail glass with a Luxardo cocktail cherry for garnish.
My finished cocktail was just what I was after and I sat back to let the world pass me by, having taken a couple of pictures of my Sloe gin concoction, which I have rechristened “And Life Sloes Down”.
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AND LIFE SLOES DOWN COCKTAIL RECIPE
INGREDIENTS
1½ measures Sloe Gin liqueur
½ measure Amaretto
⅔ measure Campari
2 measures pineapple juice
METHOD
Pour ingredients into a cocktail shaker and shake it vigorously. Carefully open the shaker and add ice then shake again. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a maraschino cherry.
