Home grown blackberry vodka

Last year we had a whole load of blackberries growing in our garden and I didn't know what to do with them, so the birds got them. This year I decided I needed to make a plan for them! My parents used to make sloe gin every year when we were little and I never got to sample it (I didn't start that early...) so I decided to make my own version...blackberry vodka.

Note the size difference of home grown vs supermarket...GM at work?



Its really simple, I used a pretty cheap vodka, not value but not fancy and had to buy another punnet of blackberries as you need 500 grams which is quite a lot!

It was really really simple to do, you need to sterilise your jar first, to do this I just washed mine really thoroughly with soapy water and then poured in just boiled water and let it sit for a bit, then dry naturally. You could also put it in a low oven for 10mins, but I was too scared that it would shatter!
Once sterilised you simply pour in the vodka, 200 grams of sugar and the blackberries.

And its done! Well not quite. You need to rather patiently tip the jar from side to side until all the sugar has dissolved. And then do this again every day for 2-3 weeks, and then once a week after that, for about 6-8 weeks. Then strain the fruit out and it will keep for about a year (not that it would ever last that long in our house)

I'm very excited to try it! I was also thinking it would make a nice little christmas gift, maybe bottled into minitures and tied up with a bow? Thrifty.