Treacodactyl
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Late damsonsCan they still be used this time of year? We found a good few local bushes today and some were a little dried and shrivelled, a few too squishy. Most still seemed nice and plump and I managed to pick quite a few. They are also quite small so could be a purple bullace but there are not sloes.
They are still very sharp but a bit soft, will they still make a reasonable jam? Failing that I could use them in damson vodka as my first trial run has turned out rather well. 
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cab
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I've found that if you make jam out of older ones, it comes out intensely flavoured but runny. Could do I suppose, but by this time of year I'd say you're better going for a wine or a liquer. Damson wine, made sweet, is extremely popular with the ladies, and also with my mate Bob.
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Bugs
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| cab wrote: | | Damson wine, made sweet, is extremely popular with the ladies |
But do you think I would like it? 
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Treacodactyl
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We love runny jam though. I think I'll risk a go at a couple of jars of jam and then nip back next weekend to see if there are any left for wine or liqueur.
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cab
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| Bugs wrote: | | cab wrote: | | Damson wine, made sweet, is extremely popular with the ladies |
But do you think I would like it? |
Depends. Would you class yourself as a lady? 
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Treacodactyl
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Re: Late damsons | Treacodactyl wrote: | | They are also quite small so could be a purple bullace but there are not sloes. |
Yep, I think they must have been bullaces. The jam is sweet enough and has set rather and tastes fine but there's a distinct dryness you get with sloes.
Anyone else have much experience with bullaces?
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Treacodactyl
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After several months watching our local damsons ripen we set off to pick them this weekend. The 'out-of-the-way' patch we found this year had all the reachable ones picked bare by someone.  We managed to pick a few pounds with a fair bit of stretching. So we then tried the same place we found 100s of trees last year. These hadn't been touched and we easily managed to bring the weekends haul upto well over 25lbs and hardly dented the 2nd place.
So, 5 gallons of damson wine has been started... 
The only slight problem is that last years seemed to be best while drunk young 
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gil
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If you went for a 4lb fruit and 3lb sugar kind of recipe, plus 1/4 mug of tea and juice of 1 lemon, you might get a damson wine that would mature well.
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Treacodactyl
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I'll move the liquid into 5 x 1 gallon djs and I'll experiment a bit: a couple plain, a couple with tea and lemon juice etc. See how they turn out.
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steve01
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have made damson vodka bafore it turned out excellnt this year as we have 2 years sloe gin have made damson gin looking forward to competing in the sloe gin contest (when i registar)
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Treacodactyl
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Just an update, we picked some again this year and even though many are very soft and falling they are still quite sharp. So, I think they must be purple bullaces. Luckily they make a very, very good wine and I've also saved some stones to try and grow them myself. Today we've also found a local yellow bullace which tastes much sweeter than the purple ones.
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