Sloely does it — the finest festive shots

Many times in my sporting career I have found myself pacing anxiously up and down the night before a shoot with a furrowed brow and pained expression. This is not because I am trying to wear in a new pair of boots, finalise my choice of gaudy shooting tie, or decide on the most appropriate cartridge load. It’s because I am worried sick about selecting the wrong liquor for my hip flask. 

There are several schools of thought on this topic. Do you plump for a delicious, tart and warming sloe gin that can safely be offered round and enjoyed by all, or should we fill our flasks with something green and medicinal that has been forged in a Balkan monastery and tastes of leaf litter and fennel? 

An old favourite like the Italian pick-me-up Fernet-Branca — which was originally marketed as cure for worms and cholera — will certainly put hair on your chest and get you through the chilly hours before lunch, but is unlikely to win you many friends when you proffer a swig around the Gun bus. However, handing your neighbour a tot of the sweet and zesty King’s Ginger might just stop your peers from pinching your birds on the next drive or snaffling the last sausage at elevenses. 

My first memories of drinking from a hip flask are from a let day in Galloway when I was about 12. Due to the position of our shoot in south-west Scotland, plenty of the commercial days were taken by parties from Northern Ireland because we weren’t far from the ferry port that serviced the boat from Belfast. I often used to join the beating line on these days, and was once handed a dram accompanied by a conspiratorial wink by a younger Gun. I took his flask with a fingerless-gloved hand and had a medium-sized gulp. The liquid within nearly caused my tongue to dissolve — and rather than the green fairy of absinthe, I’m certain I was seeing leprechauns. This was my first encounter with poitín and I have not been back for more. 

As I grew up, the excitement associated with filling your hip flask prior to a shoot became part of the convivial fun of the experience. I would try to fill my flask with something as interesting as possible to perplex and intrigue my friends as they tried to guess what I had brought. One year I had been gifted a bottle of a wonderful whisky liqueur called Bruadar crafted in Perthshire, with honey from its own hives and locally picked sloes. 

Soul affirming 

Another flask-filler that has a special place in my heart is Stag’s Breath liqueur, produced in the Cairngorms, which blends Speyside malt whisky with fermented honeycomb. As a late teen this was my route into appreciating whisky because it was a little softer on my developing palate than its full-blooded traditional counterpart. Its producers, Yvonne Richmond and Les Gibson, quite rightly call it “soul affirming”. 

Now my pals and I have moved on to attempting to make our own spirits and liqueurs to spice up shoot days and get one another spluttering. 

One friend, who spent some time as a professional distiller, conducts all sorts of alchemy in pursuit of the ultimate shoot-day elixir. While my greying hair and growing jowls are testament to the fact that he has not yet discovered a potion that will induce eternal youth, he has created all sorts of terrifying experimental concoctions. These delights include beetroot and chilli vodka, green walnut Nocino, oak-aged sloe port, wormwood gin and a number of other eye-watering options that we all impishly dared each other to try. 

If this is all seems a bit over the top, it might be worth sticking with something consistently delicious and straightforward, the king of outdoor festive tipples — sloe gin. Once referred to as poor man’s port, sloe gin came to prominence during the 17th century as a result of the rise in gin consumption in Britain and as a side-effect of the Enclosure Acts. 

When William of Orange became King William III of England after his invasion, British relations with France deteriorated while trade links with Holland tightened. This change meant the British stopped importing so much French brandy and became hooked on the precursor to gin, the juniper-flavoured liquor — jenever — produced by the Dutch. 

The Enclosure Acts, the first of which was passed in 1604, established property rights to land that had previously been held in common, on which anyone was allowed to graze their animals. This land was then enclosed and made the legal property of the upper classes. 

The blackthorn tree from which the sloe berry grows forms thick, spiky and impenetrable barriers that are perfect for keeping people out and stock in. In consequence, the recently landed gentry planted many thousands of miles of blackthorn hedges to protect their new ownership rights. As a result the masses had easy access to sloes, but this close relation of the plum is almost inedible in its natural state. However steeped in gin with additional sugar, the sloe imparts a real taste of autumn for which it has become treasured and revered. 

One of the finest sloe gins on the market, perfect for funnelling into a flask or giving as a weekend gift, is the offering from Shots & Company. This luxurious gin comes in an elegant cartridge-shaped bottle topped with replica firing cap and an embossed label reminiscent of an engraved shotgun sideplate. The wonderful fragrant spirit imparts a rich plum-berry taste combined with bright citrus and perfumed juniper notes. 

Award-winning 

Julia Medforth, the founder of Raisthorpe Manor, produces a range of gins and liqueurs perfect for keeping you feeling toasty out in the field. As well as its award-winning sloe gin, Julia also recommends damson gin made from fruits grown nearby on the Yorkshire Wolds then steeped for eight months in a uniquely distilled and blended gin. But if you are looking for something that while still warming is not quite so strong, then Julia recommends some of their more unusual products. 

Raisthorpe was the first in the UK to produce sloe and damson port, once again both from local fruit. The damson port won three gold stars at the Great Taste Awards and Julia says the drink combines the smoothness of the fortified wine with the firm fruitiness and slight bitter edge of the sloes. It can be hard to innovate in a market that has been so extensively explored but Julia tries to get to as many shows, events and tastings as she can because it is the people she meets there who offer the inspiration for new products. 

Black Powder in west Lancashire produces an eye-popping array of spirits perfect for the great outdoors. Among its range are the Sidelock and Flintlock Gins as well as its Glorious 12th Whisky. The premium Flintlock Gin has been judged to be one of the best in the world. 

Tony Dalnas, director of Black Powder Spirits, says producing their critically acclaimed gins can be incredibly complex: “Incorporating such a diverse range of botanicals means ensuring that each ingredient contributes to the overall harmony without overpowering the others. This has involved meticulous experimentation with quantities, infusion times, and extraction methods to unlock the best characteristics of each botanical.” 

In reference to the Sidelock Gin Tony says: “The difficulty lay in creating a gin that remained true to the classic London Dry style — crisp, juniper-forward, and smooth — while introducing layers of nuanced flavours from the additional botanicals.” Achieving this complexity, he said, “required an exceptional understanding of how botanicals interact during the distillation process”.

The Black Powder distillery is situated on a seaside farm belong to Tony’s father-in-law and co-founder John Loftus. Since starting the distillery they have planted more than 100,000 bushes and trees from which they harvest blackberries, apples, quinces, damsons, sloes, black plums, greengages, whitecurrants, blackcurrants, gooseberries, rosehips, and many more for the production of their fruit gins. 

Cosy atmosphere 

For the Christmas season, Tony recommends the classic Rhubarb & Ginger Gin or, as an alternative, English Wild Apple Gin with hints of burnt orange and cinnamon that complement the cosy atmosphere of winter with their festive flavours.

Whether you like a nip of Mackinlay’s whisky as enjoyed by Ernest Shackleton on his Antarctic forays, bravely swig whatever rusty solution is left in your flask from last season, or plump for something fruity to stave off the onset of festive scurvy, the world of hip-flask fillers brings people together with a kaleidoscope of traditional and exotic seasonal fare that celebrates some of Britain’s finest ingredients.