When I made the Sloe Gin, I left the gin for 3 months before filtering and bottling it. I then poured a bottle of sweet sherry onto the sloes to see how much extra flavour could be extracted from them. I didn't add any sugar, I hoped that the sweetness in the sherry was sufficient.

Today, I filtered and bottled the sherry. It doesn't have as much flavour as the gin but it's still acceptable. Next year, I think I will leave the gin for 2 months rather than 3, so there should still be some flavour left in the fruit for a 2nd 'extraction'.

I've been told that it's possible to make a rather nice 'sloe liqueur' chocolate by taking the used sloes, removing the stones and mixing the flesh with melted chocolate, then leaving to set. I was going to do that today but removing the stones was very fiddly. I tried one of the sloes and found that it was fairly dry and tasteless. Having used them to make two drinks, I had probably removed too much of the juice and flavour.