In August and September, we went for a trip to France. It’s back in the day when it was still ok to cross borders, but not necessarily mingle with the locals. We first spent a week in Normandy, the. The next week in Brittany, then the 3rd in Burgundy. Each week was at an isolated place, 2 of which were old mill houses. So quite beautiful.

In Burgundy, we stayed just outside a place called Flavigny-sur-Ozerain. A beautiful hilltop village, and the site for the film ‘Chocolat ‘. It also came complete with a working abbey, currently inhabited by 50 monks.

Outside our converted mill house, which sat below the village, was a bank, and along the bank grew wild sloe berries. Actually a relative of the rose, it is a thorny little buggar, when it comes to harvesting the delightful black with a purple-blue waxy bloom, fruit. Really known as a drupe, for any fruit nerds out there.

Anyway, I managed to harvest about a kilo of fruit. And carried them back with me to Amsterdam. I froze them soon as I got home, as I was too busy to deal with them right them. Then later, added them to some gin, and followed the steeping directions I had googled on how to make my own Sloe Gin. It’s a slow process ( my in-house joke).

So what you see is a beautiful deep purple red finished gin.

It was our first evening sitting out on the roof. It’s still winter here, so we won’t be out here too long. So tonight, a different camera angle.

I got this recipe from Karen MacLeod. A fellow Aussie 😉

She had posted as follows:-

The mixers at Cape Byron Distillery call this the Watego’s Sour

45 mls Brookies Slow gin
15mls Cointreau (or other orange curaçao)
30mls lemon juice
15mls simple syrup
10mls aquafaba
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake with ice a strain into an ice filled old fashioned glass.
Garnish is Australian native violets.
As it’s winter here Karen, the violets are still sleeping. I do have some that came from my beautiful friend Loretta, who used to live at Barry NSW.
So in replacement in good Aussie style, I have Geraldton Wax flowers.

Karen also says, you could use sloe gin or any fruit infused gin.
I also used egg white. I don’t have aqua faba, but have a good supply of organic free ranged eggs from my local market, direct from the farmer. Well, the hens are free ranged, the eggs themselves don’t get to wander about. Another joke that I thought might crack you up 😉.